POLITICS & CIVILIZATION FOR THE PASSIONATE CENTRIST

How Moderates Can Transform American Politics, Part 1: Finding Common Ground

October 2, 2018

What could the left and right possibly have in common when they’re engaged in a fight-to-the-death struggle for the future direction of American politics? You might be surprised. In fact, by emphasizing common values and objectives, we moderates could pull this squabbling nation away from the brink of civil war. Of course, we’ll probably need a bully pulpit (like the Presidency or at least a popular cable TV show) to make our voices heard, but why not start here:

1. Emphasize our common identity as Americans. We’ve splintered into mutually hostile tribes, and we desperately need to re-establish our sense of nationhood. The flag belongs to everyone, not just white conservatives. While respecting the rights of individual groups to advocate for their interests, we all need to start de-emphasizing our differences and thinking about what we have in common. Agreed?

2 Promote a humane, unifying brand of populism. There’s nothing wrong with populism in principle. (Think of those classic Frank Capra movies that celebrate the dignity of ordinary folks.) But today’s populist movements, right and left alike, are a different story: extremist, divisive, authoritarian and ugly. They’re awash in hatred, and we need to reject them in favor of a more decent, universal (and yes, moderate) brand of populism. That means transferring unwarranted power and influence away from self-appointed elites and returning legitimate power to the people and their elected representatives.

3. Keep our politicians honest. Any conscientious American, right or left, would agree that powerful lobbyists have no business bribing our representatives to do their bidding. We need to establish blind trusts so that politicians have no idea who’s funding their campaigns. Any representative caught performing quid pro quo favors must be removed from office. It would probably take a Constitutional amendment to enforce such a measure, but simply pushing for it could unite the right and left.

4. Extend Congressional representatives’ terms. With their measly two-year terms, members of the House are continually in campaign mode. We need them to stop hunting for cash and focus on lawmaking. I’d suggest a term of six years (like our Senators) along with a limit of two terms. Again, this would require a Constitutional amendment, but we can do it together as a trans-partisan project.

5. Maintain a reasonably strong military. We shouldn’t have to spend more on defense than the next 12 nations combined. We shouldn’t meddle in other nations’ conflicts or launch unnecessary, open-ended wars against guerrilla fighters who never surrender. Simply maintain a military powerful enough to act as a deterrent to aggressions against the United States and its allies.

6. Treat all classes without favoritism. The essence of a fair society — and probably the thorniest item on this list when it comes to finding common ground. Here’s a reasonable vision of an equitable society: raise taxes on the rich during periods of widening wealth inequality; eliminate tax shelters and corporate subsidies. Maintain Social Security, Medicare and other essential safety nets; no American should go broke paying medical bills. Shun double standards, including the fashionable notion that it’s acceptable to demonize white males without being considered racist or sexist. (A fair society doesn’t demonize anyone.) Make every effort to support equal opportunity without demanding equal results.

7. Improve our criminal justice system. Police and inner-city residents need to develop mutual trust and respect. Police can start by using non-lethal weapons to stop unarmed criminals and suspects. Just as important, we need to break the school-to-prison cycle that effectively ruins the lives of too many young inner-city men. Schools need to educate more effectively… students should be taught to focus on long-term goals… prisons shouldn’t be profit centers. Stop incarcerating people for minor crimes like possession of marijuana.

8 Stop thinking about race in collective terms. Just as not all blacks are thugs or unwed mothers, not all whites are automatically privileged or racist. Is it so difficult to view members of other races as individuals rather than interchangeable representatives of their tribe? Apparently so, and we have to do better. Our differences stem from our individual traits; our common humanity binds us together. This one is essential.

9. Control immigration wisely and humanely. Open borders are out of the question; the populations of distressed nations are exploding, and we can’t accommodate the overflow. But let’s clarify the legal path to entering the U.S., welcome legal immigrants and treat illegal ones humanely without giving them a free pass.

10. Consider both sides of a story. People on the left and right tend to follow the prescribed attitudes of their politically orthodox peers and their sanctioned media outlets. We need to emphasize that ideologies are like second-hand clothes. Self-respecting thinkers need to formulate their ideas by examining the arguments on both sides of an issue. At the very least, it will be a mind-opening experience, and our country could use more open minds. Right?

11. Stop politicizing everything! You name it, the ideologues have politicized it: guns, climate change, religion, women’s bodies, Civil War monuments, transgender bathroom rights. These issues have nothing to do with the affairs of state, and yet we know at a glance how the partisans will be lining up. Again, this is the result of indoctrination by left- and right-wing echo chambers and the influence of like-minded peers. We need to help ratchet down the rhetoric, point out the dangers of hyper-politicizing, and lead our ideological friends toward the sanity of a world where history is history and people are free to flirt (as long as it’s consensual, of course).

12. Socialize across the political divide. Americans have been self-segregating along ideological lines, socially as well as politically. Too many progressives shun conservatives as “deplorables,” just as too many conservatives mock progressives as “libtards.” Even our physical communities tend to be politically segregated. We need to start mingling again. We might even discover that we like some of the folks on the other side, and we’ll no longer regard them as a faceless threat. This one is mandatory.

Of course, not everyone will agree with this reasonable 12-point plan for restoring some semblance of unity to our fractured republic. That’s their misfortune, but we can’t let it become our misfortune. The most extreme extremists among us are hellbent on sowing discord and even civil war, and we’ll probably have to write them off as incorrigibles. If we don’t want the United States to splinter into warring camps, we’ll need to marginalize the extremists who have been polarizing the country with their willfully distorted narratives, memes, amen corners and fear-mongering rhetoric.

Our job, if we choose to accept it, is to win back the hearts and minds of reasonable Americans who have been seduced by the Siren songs emanating from the far right and far left. They don’t have to embrace moderate politics, but they should be able to embrace their fellow Americans again.Next: How Moderates Can Transform American Politics, Part 2: Building a Movement

The answer to the abuse of power by one side iis NOT the abuse of power by the other.
The answer to the left’s end’s justifies the means approach to everything is not for the right to adopt the same ends justiifies the means approach to everything.

Given what the left has done to our politics – Graham and republicans would be fully understood in retailiating in the same way. But that road leads to hell.

Our confliicts will not improve so long as our government continues to have the power iit currently has in our lives.

So long as that power exists – even if by some miracle we briefly manage to use it for good, the power itself will be so attractiive that those who want that power will quickly go after it doing whatever ti takes to get iit, and bring us at war with each other.

The split in this country today is about how to use government power.
That plit will remain in some form as long as the power remains.

Nothing we have ever done of this nature has ever worked.
It can not work. The attraction of power is too great.

If you killed off all those currently seeking to rent the power of government – they would be replaced by others. If as an example completely barring the rich and business from any influence in politics was actually a good idea and you succeeded – so different group would step in.

One of the problems with the ideology of the left, is the beleif that there iis some pure interest group that should weild power – environmentalists, consumer groups labor unions, …..

Power corrupts – Lord Acton.

Even Tolkien gathered this.
Galadriel was tempted but refused the ring of power. No one can wield power over others without being corrupted by it.
The entire LOTR trilogy is the quest to DESTROY the ring of power. No One – not Gandalf, not Galadriel, not Boromier, and in the end not even Frodo can avoid being corrupted by power.

Excellent piece, Rick (unsurprisingly, of course). I don’t absolutely agree with every detail, but in sum, and even mostly in the parts, I think your points are brilliant and worthwhile.

I would add that the idea of socializing across the political divide has become a radical concept, largely due to the efforts of politicians, activists and pundits. Both sides have contributed to this, but the left side of the political spectrum has ratcheted up the idea of political correctness, which silences conservatives, not only in academia and media, but in everyday “polite”conversation.

I say this, not because I want to blame the left entirely for the acrimony in even our social discourse, because I have seen fire-breathing right wingers go on the attack as well…but I think that, if we are to begin to have free and open conversations about critical issues facing the country, conservatives ~ particularly moderate conservatives ~ need to feel free to speak their minds, without fear of being called racist, misogynist, etc. etc. Liberals need to listen to their friends with an open mind.

You know me, and you know that many of my close, long-time friends hold political views that are very different from mine. I have been able, on many occasions, to have open and honest conversations with them, about hot-button issues like abortion, Trump, immigration, and, lately, even Kavanaugh.

Each time, we have found common ground. Granted, the common ground is often limited, but …it’s there. I don’t know if it’s generational, or just a matter of trusting one’s own friends, but I think that the key is in listening, and trusting that the other side has good reason for believing what s/he believes. We all have a backstory to our beliefs.

Priss – I am always encouraged by your well-thought comments. If there is any hope of finding reasonable solutions between right and left, it will be from people like yourself who are willing to dispassionately discuss issues. I am willing, from my side, absolutely.

You are the perfect example of an open-minded person, Bill. and living proof that someone with strongly held positions can still be open to listening to strongly held positions from the other side. I value that immensely.

If we average people decide that we’re not able to discuss these things, we’ll never be able to solve our problems. Moderates all talk about compromise, but the prerequisite to compromise is a belief that the other side is acting in good faith, and identifying the reasons behind their own priorities. If we’re just shouting at each other, we’re not moving closer to compromise, we’re moving farther away.

TV ratings, internet clicks, and political donations (not to mention votes) are driven by scandal and division. It takes considerable effort to overcome the emotion generated by demagoguery and media sensationalism, and sit down over a meal and just discuss.

The distinction between the left and right today is not about “going on the attack”.

It is that too many of those on the left will take political disagreement as a justification for destruction.

We are hearing and seeing calls from the more extreme on the left to confront those on the right – in their work, where they eat, in their homes and where they sleep.

Everyone right and left is not the same. Further there are dangerous extremists on both sides. But the odds are that a heated political discussion between someone on the right and someone on the left are far more like that the person on the left will seek to get the one on the right fired, or try to disrupt their lives.
This is even true on the left when two lefties disagree with each other.
Deviance from dogma is not tolerated.

We have seen this before – in the USSR and in the PRC and other socialist states.

One of the reasons that many do not get flipped out over the lack of precision of Trump’s remarks is specifically because of this.

Trump is taking on the bullies of political correctness – the press, and the left.

Those of you on the left seem to think that Trump is obligated to meet some impossibly high barrier of accuracy in his remarks – but do not hold those he is confronting to the same standards.

The left has inverted the burden of proof – whether in court or a senate hearing – or a presidential press conference the accused must get things perfect. The accusers are free to lie their ass off wiithout consequence.

To Jay and Grump and DD – yes Trump’s rhetoric is emotional, and sloppy and lacks precesion – BTW that is NOT lying. All inaccurate statements as not lies. Regardless, Trump even actually lies on occasion. But his lies are just words. There is a huge diifference between Trump’s purported lies and
Lying about an attempted rape.
Or making a promise about Obama Care that you clearly never had any intention of keeping, but that you clearly intended people to believe and knew that if you did not promise you would not be able to get approved.

The truthfulness of ones remarks is important.
We care about truth – because of its effect on subsequent action.

Relying on “if you want you can keep your doctor” – had bad real world consequences.

Some portions of Ford and Kavanaugh’s testimony has real world consequences that could be bad or good.

Whether Ford is lying about lie detectors is not important. But whether she can be trusted to testify accurately under oath is very important with respect to whether we can believe the single important allegation that she makes that WILL have real world consequences.

It is not only important that she is telling the truth, it is important that she provide verifiable details as that is how we assess the reliability of her testimony.

And on of the problems with Ford’s testimony is that today most of us grasp that it is more likely that someone from the left would make up an allegation like this to torpedo someone they do not like, than it is that someone on the right would do the same.

Thanks, Priscilla. When I think about our class reunions, I’m sure we have plenty of classmates at opposite ends of the political spectrum. And yet I never detect any animosity, because we can see (and appreciate) our classmates as individual personalities and not representatives of this or that tribe. That’s the key. Unfortunately, the Internet tends to emphasize our opinions at the expense of our unique personalities. When people choose sides online (often for fear of offending their best friends by straying from the accepted wisdom), their individual personalities almost disappear. I agree with you that progressives tend to be less accommodating than conservatives in this department.

I would disgree with your assertion that the internet makes us lemmings.

I think the opposite is true – it allows us to express ourselves passionately without so much fear of being judged by our friends and coworkers.

While regulars here have become close in ways we could not with face to face relationships.
We have also expressed ourselves in ways we could not in face to face relationships.
AND there are mahy ways relationships here are inferior.

But TNM and the discussions and even much of the confliict is an asset.

Rick, all good ideas, but I think the answer lies in your first statement when you said “Of course, we’ll probably need a bully pulpit (like the Presidency or at least a popular cable TV show) to make our voices heard”

The presidency, no, but a cable TV station along with simultaneous radio broadcast by moderate announcers. There would need to be some unique way to get moderates interested in watching the news, but I think that could happen. As was pointed out in earlier comments in the previous post, about 30% of the people are conservative, another like amount are liberal, leaving 40% in the middle.

Ron: It’s unfortunate that so many moderates are politically apathetic. As Yeats wrote, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” (I’d modify that to pit moderates against ideologues.) I suppose leftists and right-wingers have so many media outlets because it’s easy to give voice to extreme opinions. They’re clear-cut, easy to digest, and usually entertaining. Moderate ideas are by definition more nuanced, and they can shift as a counter-balance to crazy ideas that are gaining momentum on the right or left. (That’s why I refer to myself as a “boat balancer.”)

I should probably try to promote The New Moderate more assertively than I do, but after ten years a certain fatigue sets in — along with a sense of resignation about changing people’s thinking.

On the GOP side at least, moderates like Graham and Collins ~ and even Flake ~ have energized the Republican voters in a way that Trump could not. I think that they both believe that Democrats have been seriously attempting to capsize the “boat,” and that their own boat balancing actions had to be more exceptional and upfront. From my own moderate conservative viewpoint, they represented political moderates very well, and convinced me that they could balance what many fear is the growing populism (or what many call “trumpism”) in the party with old-fashioned republicanism.

His remarks on the SJC were incredible and needed to be said.
II beleive my differences with him are political rather than ethical – like my differences with Sessions. But we are talking about the only republiican who is more of a war monger than Clinton.

7,9,10. Those are possible, especially 10. 12 sounds nice, but… I’ll be the villain. I have no old friends who got seduced by trump or today’s version of the gop, so its hypothetical, but I see no deeper sign of a person’s character than their beliefs. I would likely cut ties with a person who fell into trump’s orbit. I had friends who supported Bush/Cheney and it did not matter to me. trump is a bridge too far.

Last night trump not only mocked Ford at a rally but made the statement that “these people are evil.” Which people he meant exactly is not clear, but I take his words personally, as say, Ron and Priscilla took the deplorables thing personally.

I was disgusted last weekend by SNL mocking K’s tears. Its bad enough that entertainers would use their position to be publically cruel. The POTUS doing it? Right, Rick, like I am going to view someone who admires trump in a friendly way. That is Not going to happen! Being able to tell right from wrong is a qualification for friendship. I have friends who are decent conservatives, they saw through trump immediately. That means that I have the right friends in the first place.

The age of trump is an age where your #12 is in serious trouble.

There will never be a moderate political movement. Moderates are not into movements. Moderates are a sort of a balancing fluid that acts to pull the pendulum back from its extremes at elections. When the elections are between two horrible choices, that mechanism cannot work. Social media and the left/right media are moving us to a state where we are only likely to have horrible choices at the national level, barring some miracle.

I agree with that, grump. And I agree with the reason that you give, which is that moderates are not into “movements.” I think that people who are into movements, are people who believe in tribes, and we have a lot of tribes these days. Trump has not created them, he has merely identified the tribes that have been excluded by progressives, and built a constituency of people who believe that they have been, and will continue to be, left in the dust bin. Even worse, they believe that they’ve been blamed for the problems that the progressives claim that they can solve with social justice. There are an awful lot of people out there, grump, occasionally even you, who have noted that social justice can quickly turn into mob justice, and they have decided that they want no part of progressivism.

I think that the real #Resistance should not be the attempt to overthrow a duly elected president, but should center around attempts to bring together people that are genuinely concerned about certain issues, and encourage them to engage with each other. If the news media were to see that as its mission, I think that we could make some headway. CNN occasionally hosts town halls . There have been some good ones in the past, although the gun control one after Parkland was more of an anti-gun rally, and not helpful Fox and MSNBC have hosted them in the past, as well. I think it would be great if the networks would encourage political debates. The media plays such a HUGE (YUGE?) role in this, and they have, of late, done much more harm than good.

And, let’s give credit to our own host here. Rick puts himself out there all the time, knowing that he’s going to take shots from both sides, but we generally stay civil….until he’s gone, that is! I follow some other bloggers who encourage commenters to disagree, but without trolling each other. It’s not really possible to eliminate the kinds of pot shots that we all take when talking about emotional issues, but it’s possible to discourage it.

Being in my 70’s has taught me the importance of keeping things simple in looking for answers to the political environment we now find ourselves. Looking back over the years I was able to witness the many different changes our society has gone through and the many questions that arose out of those changes. I like you have tried to find ways to resolve many of these issues but trying to keep things simple stumbled upon probably what is the best way to find resolve with one another is to follow the 5th Habit of Steven Covey’s book “The Seven Habits of Hight Effective People” and that is “Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood”.

Ford will be increasingly aggressively attacked as more information comes out questioning her testimony.

What is wrong about this is that we are fighting an issue in the court of public opinion that should not be decided here.

This just exposes the flaw in the left’s majoritarianism.

Bring all of life into the scope of government and then make all government decisions majoritarian and the result will be the politics of personal destruction.

That is the inevitable consequence of the left’s political approach.

When you make public opinion a part of every decision making process, you assure that once it becomes possible to do so, one side will savage whoever they need to win.

The only difference between the attacks on Kavanaugh and those on Ford, Ramirez and Swetnick – are that Kavanaugh is a minor public figure.
But the others chose to enter the public arena
Their only protection against personal attacks is their credibility, as they lose that, they will be attacked.

Trump’s attacks on Ford are not the problem, once this was made into a public circus – and Trump did not make that choice, the rest has been inevitable.

“There will never be a moderate political movement. Moderates are not into movements.”

Of course not. This is why the exercise of power in government needs to be limited and difficult.

It will ALWAYS be the passonate the “extreme” that will seek to have government act.

Further on rare occasions they will be right.

Your conception of moderate is an ideology that is guaranteed to nearly ALWAYS be WRONG,. Your moderate is a deliberate choice to select the middle option – because even though it’s not right, it is also certain to be less wrong than one of the choices.

That is not inherently bad. Nor is it inherently good. It is sometimes necescary to determine the correct choice rather than settle for half bad/half good.

Grump, I would hope you would remember that I have said many times that I do not like Trump. I have said I like some of his policies, specifically supporting the economic policies passed by congress, Trade policies, eliminating so many ridiculous government regulations and stopping illegal immigration at the border while sending many illegals back to their home country. I also have said there are some illegals that should be made legal like the dreamers that are more American than our past president, except they don’t have the birth certificate.

If there was any other person that promoted the policies that Trump promotes, I would vote for them in a heartbeat. Trump, it really depends on the opponent. Another Clinton, a Warren or Booker, yes I would vote for him, only to be one that would be one blocking vote to a disaster economically for the country and stopping identity politics in its track. If a moderate democrat, then a choice between the Libertarian and that candidate.

Check out #walkaway. He says it well on how I view the current democrats.

I did not see nor have not heard his speech. I can imagine it given his “little hands” crap during the election. He probably mocked everything she said and more so. Just like Obama getting involved with race issues like in Ferguson, a President should stay out of that crap, but Trump can not do that. He has to be the last word in anything, no matter good or bad words.

What he is doing is energizing the actual “deplorables” that support that crap. But you can support Trumps policies without supporting Trump. Sometimes you have to swallow castor oil to eliminate bureaucratic BS, which is what many have to do with Trump.

Exactly! (not that I do). I have no problem with that. Pat Riot may be in the same group. You have said many clear things about how you see trump himself and I have never had any question about your view of him personally.

There is trump the man, as a person. I part ways completely with people who admire trump the man, his character, minimize or rationalize his worst behaviors etc.

There is the behaviors of trump, his way of talking, his way of communicating, his way of dividing and working people up, enraging them. I part ways with anyone who admires that.

Then there is the policies of trump divorced from the man and his behaviors. I am OK with people who make either dichotomous choice between trumps policies (most of which I do not agree with) and progressive policies, (most of which I do not agree with.) if that is all it is, policy. Some policies, like separating children from their parents and over the top enforcement on illegals sicken me more than, say tax cuts.

The two things that are uniquely trumpian policywise from what another gop president would do without dragging us down into the gutter are his negotiations with NK, which at this point I have to give him credit for, although I think its 60/40 that lil kim pulls away the football as trump goes to kick it and this is all just part of lil kims strategy to acquire all of Korea without a war. Still, talking with NK has a better chance than not talking and prior to this the conventional wisdom was not to talk so throwing convention to the winds seems to be an improvement in this case.

The second thing is China, where I see what the stakes are and understand why it feels good to use the trade stick on China, but my premonition is that this is going to create a long term huge problem for decades and work out badly for all.

Sorry Rick I have dragged your thread straight to trump again. Its like trying to escape the gravity of a black hole, it just sucks you in.

“I part ways completely with people who admire trump the man, his character, minimize or rationalize his worst behaviors etc.”

Where are those people ? I have not met them.
You seem to think they are everywhere – that anyone who is not frothing over the last Trump tweet is one of them.

We had the choice between two people of bad character in 2016.

The country held its nose and picked Trump.

II think character matters. The country does not. Clinton’s popularity ROSE after he lied under oath and had sex with an intern in the oval office.

Bill Clinton is an abysmal human being. He is much worse than Trump both because of what he has actually done, and because he is so easily able to persuade people otherwise.

We may not think Trump is a rapist, but even he admits to having been a horn dog.

But like it or not Clinton was a good president. Not perfect, definitely dispecable.
But the country improved significantly while he was president.

That is NOT true of Bush who I increasingly respect as a person, while increasingly beleive was a horible president.

It was NOT true of Obama – who I DID respect as a person while being a bad president, who I am increasing losing respect for as a person.

Trump is never going to gain my respect as a person.
But he is increasingly looking to be a good president – potentially better than Clinton, though there is a long way to go.

He is far from perfect on policy. On some policies I vigously oppose him.
But I am NEVER getting a presiden I agree with on everything.

So no – I am not interested in your or anyone else’s daily attacks on his character.
Though I do not think he has 666 tattooed under his orange comb over, he is not someone I would want dating my daughter. Regardless, tomorrows “Trump is a bad person” tweet, is not going to convert me or pretty much anyone else.
Most of us understand Trump’s negatives. We are also capable of seeiing that he has been a pretty good president thus far.
That could change – and if iit does Trump is toast.
But the outrageous trump tweet of the day is NOT goiing to get us there.

China is incredibly complex. Trump and Tarrifs are a tiny part of the challenges facing China.
Most of which have very little to do with the US.

You are completely wrong regardiing China – primarily because you make the Tarriifs a far bigger issue than they are.

Regardless of Tarriiff’s the US and China will grow closer. It is in their interests, and it iis unavoidable.

China is struggling because it has gone about as far as it can go by offering iits people economic freedom without political freedom. Trump has NOTHIING to do wit that.
That is the most consequential problem in china today.
Further it is a cap on further economic growth, and political unrest in china can rapidly get out of control if the government can not deliver on increasing standard of living.

If China gets things right – it will be an increasingly important super power in the future.
That will inherently create conflict with the US. But that is not inherently bad.

The difference between America and China is planning. While America is planning for 5-10 years and anything further out than that makes many call politicians “nut heads”, the Chinese are planning on how they will be the superior country 20-40 years.out.

There are myriads of books on China.
Somewhat directly on your point is Ronald Coases “How China became capitalist”.

To give you a clue – it absolutely positively was NOT PLANNED.

Post Mao chinese leaders did grasp they needed to learn how to be more prosperous.
They did lots of research explored many many options – pretty much all of which failed.

But they made one change that worked – and they did not even make it consciously.
They became – mostly after the fact, more tolerant of experiments, outside of government.

One of the earliest started just before Mao died.

China was importing food. It could not feed the people. All over people were hungry.
It was not as bad as during the great leap forward, but it was bad.

In one out of the way village the people got together and decided that in addition to the communal rice farms that everyone was supposed to help with, they would allow each family a small amount of land to produce food for their own consumption.

I am sure you have heard this story before – it happened at James Town. It happened at Plymouth, It happened with the Kulak’s in the USSR.

Wherever it was allowed – it worked incredibly – and it worked in china.

This was not the first time this was tried – in China or elsewhere – I mentioned the Kulack’s deliberately.
It is what happened next that mattered – in the past – in the USSR, in the PRC, those people who tried this – sometimes even when government encouraged it, were punished.
With Mao Dead, and people starving the key leaders – I beleive Deng Xio Ping, decided to do something communists do not typiically do – and ignore it.
They diid not encourage it, they did not punish it, they just ignored it. That is all.
Deng wanted to do more, but preventing the “capitalist roaders” from being punished for not startving like everyone else was the best he could do.
Anyway when the communists did not punish this, word spread, the “experiment” grew in in a few years China went from importing food to exporting. Today China exports nearly as much food as the US.

Since Mao’s death this story in different forms has repeated itself over and over.
The “secret” to China’s prodigious growth since Mao’s death is NOT planning, it is freedom.

Ignoring people who are doing things in violation of the prevalent ideology is a form of limited freedom. And China shows us what small increases in freedom can do.

If you are in doubt – read Coases. The book is excellent and an easy and fun read (for economics).

If you still have doubts – I would recommend “The commanding heights:The battle for the world economy”, this is both a book and a 6hr BBC/PBS special.
One I would absolutely never beleive came from BBC/PBS.

Regardless, “the commanding heights” will show you that the same thing that occurred in China has occured elsewhere in the world – to varying degrees since WWII.

Universally greater economic freedom has resulted in much more rapiid growth – in China, in India, in the UK, in Itally, in Poland. in Uraguay.

Anywhere it has been tried with the improvement scaling with the degree of freedom and the duration with whiich freedom was permitted.

Central Planning fails – even in china

This is the core economic and political lession of the 20th and 21st centuries.

You and I are not on the same side of some issues – such as Trade regarding Trump.

Our differences do not make one of us evil. They do not make being wrong on that issue the end of the world. Or the collapse of western civilization.

I am still trying to sort out the recent Canada Mexico Trade deal.
It is near certain that I think it is inferior to the US unilaterally dropping all barriers to trade with Canada or Mexico.
It is near certain that it is NOT the greatest thing silence sliced bread as Trump is selling
Oh God No!!! Trump is “Lying”
It appears that it is an improvement over NAFTA – though I think a small improvement.

So we have spent 3 years ranting about Trump as a threat to the entire world, and after all the end of the world rhetoric – including Trump’s we get something that though not the salvation of the world, is still a small improvement.

In other words ZERO justification for the Trump hysteria.

Ultimately I expect EXACTLY the same with China – after more sabre rattling.
Pretty much everything I have read suggests that Trump has a much stronger negotiating position that China. That a “trade war” will hurt China more and faster than the US.
That doesn’t make it a good idea, or mean that I support it.
But I just can not get worked into a lather because Trump is risking a small stupid thing in order to get a small improvement and to look good to his base.

The “big deal” – which I do not understand why has not been made already is the US UK deal.

That one is trivial – absolute free trade between the US and UK,
Anything that meets their regulations is presumed to meet ours – and visa versa.
Americans can buy Britsh Drugs, or foods, The British can buy US products – without restrictions.

US Blue collar labor will absolutely buy that.
We do understand that free trade benefits everyone – so long as those trading with us are white engliish speaking people of approximately the same income.

We will agressively compete with the briitish for their markets – and they will for ours, and we will know we are both better off for it.

We will not be ranting about jobs going overseas or the British “dumping” cheap products built with cheap labor.

That deal should have happened a year ago. May should have been falling all overherself to get it. It would have given her incredible leverage with the EU.

One of the undercurrents to Brexit is that Britian has been and remains primarily a trading nation. EU rules significantly constrain about 1/3 of the trade that the UK is capable of.
EU membership makes UK trade with the US and the rest of what was the british commonwealth harder and more expensive.
In the 80’s the European market was more valuable to the UK than its other foreign markets.
As the standard of living in China and India rises they become increasingly important trading partners, and the relative value of trade with the EU diminishes.

I think that there is no US/UK free trade deal primarily because too many politicians in the UK are too tied to the EU.

“The difference between America and China is planning. While America is planning for 5-10 years and anything further out than that makes many call politicians “nut heads”, the Chinese are planning on how they will be the superior country 20-40 years.out.”

Exactly! I said that a while back and dave typed contradictions for days. But, you are correct. They think in much longer terms and their system makes that kind of thinking possible.

I am not sure we are really planning for more than a year here. Democracy and planning seem to be poorly compatible.

Nope, Grump, Ron, is NOT correct – as much as I might respect his POV.

China does plan. But that has NOTHING to do with their success.
In fact EVIDENCE demonstrates that central planning does not work.
This is not even a close call.

You can read Hayek from 70 years ago, or Friedman, or Coase, or the Frazier institute today.
You can look at the data on Sweden from before the 50’s, from the 50-s to the 90’s and from the 90’s to the present. you can look at the data for any country anywhere at any time.

With almost no exceptions for any country, any group of countries, any time period, standard of living rises faster the smaller government is atleast down to government at 20% of GDP.
Probably that remains true down to 3-5% of GDP – but our data below 20% is poor.

This is not even a close call.

BTW this is not merely a factor in government it is a factor in business.
Large businesses get many advantages from the economies of scale.
But they also have disadvantages – one of those is that their long term and relatively rigid planning model has a negative impact. The effects on business are less pronounced than government, and there are other factors that assure that a free market will always have a mix of different size businesses,

But the fact is central planning has benefits and negatives and the larger the scale the larger the negatives become.

China’s “planning” is absolutely a difference between it and the US.
That planning has both negative and positive effects.
On NET it is a significant DISADVANTAGE, not an advantage.

This entire debate reflects the common error that nearly all progressives make in their arguments.

They confuse the fact that almost every action that can possibly be considered has positive effects, with a positive net outcome.

We can do many things such as restrict speech that will absolutely reduce discrimination.
But there actions will have impacts beyond discrimination and those will be primarily negatiive. Many will be quite large but also only visible when we have the oportunity to do side by side comparisions, which is rare – so we use statistical regressions to determine what the impact of the “unseen” is.

Regardless, the point is everything has positive effects, That should never be confused with being net positive. Any action in which you are only looking at the benefts, you are near certaiin to make a bad choice.

dhlli: all you comments on the last thread are pure obfuscation- as usual, and I couldn’t care less about your RE and estate travails, that wallpapering over down wash here in NYC the home of slum lords and King Tax Cheat Donald Trump.

The causes are the willingness of the left to impose its wiill on the rest of us – by any means necescary and their willingness to use any tactic to silence those who disagree.

Trump is a reacton to that.

THAT is what divides the country.
Get rid of Trump – the problem with remain.

We were fighting HERE over mostly the same issues, before Trump was anything more than a comic possiblity.

One of the things the fight over Kavanaugh is doing – is bringing the GOP back together.

Many #neverTrumpers have gotten behind Kavanaugh.
Many #nevertrumpers are understanding that the left is seeking the destruction of the country, and at the moment Trump is their primary obstacle.
Increasingly the GOP is coming to “the enemy or my enemy is my friend”.

I am surprised at the persistance of the left. and the ability of the left and those like yourself to maintaiin this level of spittle spewing malignancy for so long.

AGAIN Trump’s election was not a fluke.
While there are many factors – the prime one is the anger of large parts of the country with the left for labeling them as hateful hating haters.

Just to be clear – not because of Hillaries statement that was just one expression of what most of those not on the left know – the left hates everyone who does not kowtow to their ideology.

The modern left is NOT the left of the 60’s or 70’s or 80’s.
They are intolerant. They will shout down those who disagree. They will invade their work. their homes, their private spaces. They will engage in violence if necessary to achieve their ends.

Lots of us – many who did not support Trump have fought this through The Obama administration.

Republicans picked up nearly 4000 elected offices at the federal and state level across the country from 2008 through 2016. That was not a fluke or an accident – it was a political response to what they were seeing from the left.

It is likely that any republican would have won in 2016. But Republicans picked Trump primarily because he is trump. Because he is the in your face response to the lefts in your face politics. Republicans were tired of Romney’s.

If you take out Trump – even if you manage to do so in a way that people accept as legitimate – which is highly unlikely, you will still has myriads of angry trump voters to contend with.

Trump is actually the natural consequence of the successes and actions of the left from atleast 2008 through 2016.

If Trump did not exist – politics would have created him eventually.

You should feel lucky that Clinton lost. The backlash in another 4 years would have been worse.

You keep comparing Trump to Hiiter.

While there are many flaws in that comparision,

Hitler, Mao, Musolinii, Stalin. Castro, Franco, ….

All followed periods where the government of their countries was failing – usually but not always leftist government.

Regardless, when there is chaos, we look for strong men to lead – the worse the chaos, the more authoritarian we look for.

Trump or no Trump there are several possible futures right now.

The left actually wins – bringing an even worse economy than the Bush/Obama years.
While will result in backlash that elects someone worse than you think trump is.

The left collapses and restructures significantly abandoning its politics of personal destruction.

The right continues to strengthen.

The left wins and manages by hook or crook to hold power.
This results in violence.

Threaten a conservative while they sleep = as the left is now advocating, and you are going to get shot.

You do not grasp that while the left is the great threat to the country today,
as they go farther and farther – they guarantee that the final word will come from the right.
Either politically or if the left illegitimately thwarts politics through violence.

Sometimes(often) there are alot of facts.
Sometimes the facts are tedious
Facts can be annoying.
Facts can be boring.

They are still facts.

Insulting them or me, does not support your or any other relevant argument.

It is ad hominem – and argument to the person.
Even if true it is fallacy, though it is rarely true.

We can not possibly ever find common ground, reach agreement, even manage your prized compromise, if your idea of discussion is to attack the other person rather than their argument, to attack the other person rather than present your facts, and your argument.

Just getting rid of Trump will not do it. Give us an alternative the conservatives will jot gag on as badly as prigressives gag on Trump. Then we can have a discussion. Just saying getting rid of Trump is just blowing hot air.

Regardless, they absolutely wish to make this country into something radically different that will fail.

Large portions of the modern left have been enamoured even advocating venezuelan socialism. It takes very little retrospective examination to find the left fawning over Venezuelan socialism.

We can engage in word games as to whether those people WANTED the destruction of the US – it is a farce to pretend that had they had the power to do what they wished – destruction would have been the outcome.

There are things that the right WANTS that will have bad outcomes.
But the right given absolutely everything they WANT would at best send the country back to the 50’s culturally. That would not be good. It also would not be the horror that is Venezuela right now.

That you continue to pretend that the Left does not dwarf the right as a threat flies in the face of reality.

Maybe it is foaming and frothing to spew 10.000 words of facts, logic reason noting in multple different ways your error on these issues.
But it is also reality.

Get a clue. There is reality, and there is ideology. Some ideologies are wrong – always, some are wrong sometimes. some may be right all or most of the time.

The left is angry, the right is angry, I am angry.
There may be little difference in our anger.

Being angry – emotional says nothing about fact or fiction,

Ford and Kavanaugh both made strong emotional appeals.
That had ZERO to do with their credibility.

The error is not in having emotions. it is in pretending that emotions are arguments.
It is in pretending that your emotions are a justification for the use of force against others.

You are free to rely exclusively on emotions to make decisions completely within your own life. You are not free to use emotions to justify the use of force against others.

That is not merely a characteristic of the left, it is fundimental to the ideology of the left.

“It clearly drives you crazy that others have different opinions than you do. Your millions of words are your reaction to your frustration that we do not see things the way you do.”

You are free to have whatever oppinions you wish and I am free to disagree.

So long as the direct effects of your oppinions and their actions are confined to yourself any debate is accademic – and I enjoy that debate – but you are still free to do as you please.

Where you are acting or empowering others to act – using force, against others, we are beyond the realm of mere oppinions.

You should trivially understand that you may not kill others because in your oppinion the world would be better with them dead.

Accept that and you have accepted the social contract – that you are allowed to restrain the freedom of others, when their exercise of that freedom – their ACTS, directly infringe on your freedom or that of others. It also means you may not use force however you wish. You may not do so because lots of others support that use of force.
The use of force is justified in protecting the rights of individuals, not infringing on them.

That is more than an oppinion, it is central to the existance of government.
It is logic that has never been refuted.

Ron, Yes, that cartoon was vile. Partisans lose all perspective and are capable of anything.

But, its not Liberals, its SOME liberals.

SOME conservatives heaped shit and abuse and threats on a kid who decided to become politically active on gun control following having his classmates blown away in one of the endless series of school massacres. The kid had been hiding in a closet or something while a gunman blew his friends and classmates away just a short time previously and SOME conservatives had no sign of a heart whatsoever and went after him like a gang of bullying goons. Even some supposedly nice people jumped on the bandwagon.

The use of qualifiers, not just when writing but also when thinking in the first place, would keep people from lumping all members of some group together and building the case that every single liberal or conservative or white or black person or catholic or muslim is just like the worst examples. That blanket blaming is of course is an important step to lowering oneself into the septic tank.

Senators Sasser, Flake, Collins, McCain, Corker, and Murkowski, among others did not spring from nowhere, they are conservatives, came from conservatism, and represent conservatives with honor and decency. There is still a good heart beating in conservative thinking, it just needs to be rescued from the example set by the POTUS and his deplorables.

Exactly the same goes for the liberal side.

The good eggs have to speak up and lead and criticize indecency that arises on their own side. The ones who do that are on the list of politicians I respect.

Bret Stephens, NYT Never-Trumper, who has written many, many highly critical articles on Trump, both before and after his election:

“For the first time since Donald Trump entered the political fray, I find myself grateful that he’s in it. I’m reluctant to admit it and astonished to say it, especially since the president mocked Christine Blasey Ford in his ugly and gratuitous way at a rally on Tuesday.

I’m grateful because Trump has not backed down in the face of the slipperiness, hypocrisy and dangerous standard-setting deployed by opponents of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. I’m grateful because ferocious and even crass obstinacy has its uses in life, and never more so that in the face of sly moral bullying. I’m grateful because he’s a big fat hammer fending off a razor sharp dagger” ~ Bret Stephens, NYT 10/4/2018

It’s not easy to get Bret Stephens to say anything positive about Trump, and even harder to get the NYT to print it.

But the Democrats have succeeded in making Stephens grateful that Trump is our president. And he uses exactly, EXACTLY the reasoning that so many reluctant Trump supporters have used, that is, that Trump does not back down in the face of bullying and character assassination, as Republican moderates have done in the past. Just as your parents and teachers taught you, standing up to bullies is the only way to defeat them.

Moderates don’t have to be centrists. Moderates don’t have to be cowards. Moderates don’t have to be appeasers. Glad to see that moderates like Lindsey Graham and Bret Stephens get it.

My biggest problem with Trump is his mouth. He goes for a couple weeks without saying something offensive and then goes and gives a speech that I am almost going to say is designed for “deplorables”.

What he said about Ford was offensive and unacceptable. I can only believe anyone that would think that funny , acceptable and anything but bullying can only be one that Clinton described as “deplorable”.

One thing for certain, when F and K began getting all the attention, Trump had to do something to redirect attention to himself. He is like the bratty kid, needing all the attention good or bad.

In looking up Sasse’s comments I also got a link to “Ben Sasse is being a real Ben Sassehole about Kavenaugh.” That and more is what someone like Sasse was doomed to hear for actually being both a decent voice and a gop senator. Get in line Ben, shape up.

I like Ben Sasse. A lot. Any article referring to any senator as an asshole is not one that I would bother to read, despite my attempts to read opinion from both sides. Nevertheless, thanks for the gratuitous insult, grump 😉

And puzzling that you think that Bret Stephens is a author of Trump propaganda.

Who would you name , other than Joe Manchin, as a moderate on the Democrat side? And what opinion writer, similar to Bret Stephens and Ross Douthat, from the liberal side of the spectrum, has written a column questioning the political circus that the Kavanaugh confirmation has become?

I’m not saying that they don’t exist. But that was my point, clumsily made as it may have been. And my questions are genuine…where are the moderates on the left?

Eh, no need to apologise, but you did give me a chance to get on one of my favorite soapboxes, ha I should thank you.

“But also, many good people who are consistently exposed
to stuff like this gecome immune to the problem it causes.”

Yes, in biochemistry its called “saturation of receptors.” For example, its why when you walk into a pine forest it smells great for 5 minutes and then you hardly can smell the pine scent after that.

Its why I do not watch the news and read little more in print than the daily headlines on most days. I do not want to be part of this desensitized population that thinks for example, that SNL mocking K’s tears was funny.

Rick listed all these things he believes that moderates could bring to heal America.

I have another after listening tobsome talking heads discussing Booker, K and the FBI investigation. My thoughts:

Moderates are just as likely to vote Democrat as Republican. Democrats are just as likely to turn out and vote for a centrist as a far left liberal. So if moderates willturn out in the 2020 primaries and participate in the democrat primary, vote for a moderate and not far left candidates like Sanders or Booker, maybe there would be chance a moderate could win. And I am not talking about a Hillary fake moderate.

“Moderates are just as likely to vote Democrat as Republican.”
I beleive the middle tends to go slightly to the right. But not consistently

“Democrats are just as likely to turn out and vote for a centrist as a far left liberal.”
Nope. Both parties need to “motivate their base” and their bases is away from the center.

“So if moderates will turn out in the 2020 primaries and participate in the democrat primary, vote for a moderate and not far left candidates like Sanders or Booker, maybe there would be chance a moderate could win. And I am not talking about a Hillary fake moderate.”
Sorry, not happening.

“He goes for a couple weeks without saying something offensive and then goes and gives a speech that I am almost going to say is designed for “deplorables”.”

For about a week statements I read as being made by trump had such a different tone and grammar, they were intelligible, did not sound idiotic or unreasonable, etc. that I suspected someone else was writing them, or that he has another completely different manner of speaking and only uses the usual one because it is effective in stirring up jerry springer type reactions from the audience that profit him. I do not know which it was but I suspect it was the first, someone else wrote them. I thought that maybe, just maybe he could finally be growing a bit.

Grump, he plays to his audience. When in D.C. he is playing to America. When on the stump, he knows most of the attendees are going to be those that love the “deplorable” label and wear it proudly.Few that dislike Trump will attend a Trump rally.

He can turn on a dime and never faulter. He called Kim Rocket Man one day and shortly later was playing nice.

I heard his speech. What I heard was not a sound bite. It was not bad, it was dep!orable. You DO NOT make fun of a woman who has been sexually assaulted, yesterday or 36 years ago.

But I guess a man who uses power to cover up sexual misconduct in his past would be mentally incapable of understanding that fact.

I have said I did not vote for Trump. I have said when he runs for reelection, I would have to consider my vote given the candidates running against him. After that unforegivable attack on Ford, there is no way I would vote for him. Its either the Last bertarian or a blank space on my ballot.

He should have directed his obnoxious comments toward the democrats.

I wonder how many feel the same as I do. If the presidential election where this year, we might find out. Probably few will remember in 2020.

Some of Trump’s remarks regarding Ford were wrong.
Though it was inevitable that someone was saying them just as it was inevitable that stories – maybe true maybe not would come out undermining Ford’s credibility.

Trump’s words bother me – alot, sometimes. I did not vote for him either, and it is unlikely I will. But that does not make any of his opponents better.

If someone put a gun to my head today and said you much vote – and it must be for Trump or an electable democrat. I can not think of any democrat that would get my vote.

Trump is not a particularly good person. He is better than Bill Clinton, but of recent presidents, that is about it.

But he has actually been a good president – so far. Better that every president since Reagan except Clinton.

I wish our presidents were good people.
I wish our good presidents were good people.
Many are not.

” So if moderates will turn out in the 2020 primaries and participate in the democrat primary, vote for a moderate and not far left candidates like Sanders or Booker, maybe there would be chance a moderate could win. ”

Somehow getting moderates to vote in primaries of both parties would be the best thing that could happen to our politics. If there would be one moderate dem vs several progressive dems then he moderate should win.

A moderate dem candidate would likely beat trump and very possibly in a landslide. So far no moderate dem is making any signs of getting a campaign going. I can only hope there will be one, and only one, electable moderate dem in the dem primaries.

As a tangent to that, I am so sick of the SC war that I wish they would just confirm K and let the voters react how they will next month and in 2020. Might be a pyrrhic victory getting K confirmed. Who knows?

The thing that has been shown in 2008 and 2012 is conservatives did not turn out for more centrist candidates. One wonders what might have happened had the Democrat candidate not been Obama who energized the minority vote.

So given that belief that a moderate GOP cant win, then that leaves the democrats to try.

And when Ibsay moderate, I am talking about a candidate that believes in staying out of your life. Both socially and fiscally. Minimal government involvement.

Until 1968, primaries for the most part were beauty contest. The nominee did not even have to participate in a primary because the party elders picked the candidate. I have tried hard to find any historical information as to when states adopted open primaries and in this case the internet is useless. Guess 5 different ways of searching for that info is not what it needs, nor is using 2 different search engines including duckduckgo.

My point is democrats should choose democrats, republicans should select republicans and those that are indepentent and do not want to register in one party or the other should be required to vote for that person the parties selects.

This could well create further division between further left and further right candidates. My personal belief is Cruz and Bush would have been the last men standing had all primaries been closed. Basically the christian conservatives V establishment republicans. Is that good or bad, no one knows and its just speculation on my part. But we would not have had Trump IMO.

And I also believe that the parties should do away with super delegates and have the nominee picked by the primary outcomes based on percent of vote, not winner take all..Would that have made a difference in the democrat selection. Might not, but it would have been much closer and more individuals may have voted in the later primaries due to the closeness of the delegate count. Again, speculation on my part.

Last, distribution of electoral votes. Eliminate the winner take all in states and allocate based on how the congressional district voted.So for instance, instead of Clinton getting all 55 of California electors, Trump would have won 7 since he won 7 districts in 2016.. Would that have made a difference in the final count? Yes, slightly, but not enough to change the outcome. But it would be more representative and might create some excitement for republican candidates to spend time in swing California districts and Democrats in swing Texas districts.

Ever happen. Hell no, the parties are too invested in what they have now.

Open primaries gave us Trump!
Please note the analysis concerning open primary, moderate to liberal independent voters and the impact on New Hampshire outcome. I also suspect from other information I have read this same trend holds true for the next habdful of primaries, at which time money began drying up for other candidates.

And you are correct that “some” on the right engage in the same tactics.

At this moment in time the balance:
The frequency of bad conduct,
the breadth of the targetting
the portion of those doiing the targeting

Are ALL far worse on the left.

While Fred Phelps is dead – there remain others like him.

But you can not “shake a stick” wiithout hitting a leftist (NOT AT ALL LIBERAL) who is prepared to call half the country “hatefull, hating haters” for political disagreement.

The cartoon was repugnant – not because it targeted Kavanaugh – he is a big boy, and chose to enter the public arena, but because it targeted his children who did not.
I have not seen the SNL skit, but I do not care that they targeted Kavanaugh.
My understanding is that it was not funny. That is a different problem, the left has lost any sense of humor.
David Hogg, chose to make himself a public figure. There is no difference between “going after” him and “going after” Kavanaugh.

II have no problem attacking a public figure.
But I expect that you will do so accurately,
Not because you are not free to make false claims.
But because you will be accurate if you wish me to beleive you in the future.

The left, the media, NYT are suffering – not because they are “going after” public figures on the right, but because they are wrong frequently, and because they “go after” more than public figures, they go after everyone.. The left is smearing ordinary people. That is a giant political mistake which will bite them on the ass.

NPR just completed surveys indicating that the Kavanaugh fight has totally energized republicans. That the republican base is now as likely to vote as democrats.
If that is true and remains so through November the left can kiss any blue wave goodbye.

Further GOP enthusiasm is rising. Democratic enthusiasm may have peaked.

Earlier today, most were reporting Flake and Collins were speaking positive to the lastest information, but something happened. Collins is back in the “I dont know” and Flake is a maybe.

IMO the best result for the Nov 2018 elections will be a no vote on K. I also think that is bad for the country because it further divides us and I dont think the democrats ever thought it would get this far. I think they thought Trump woukd cave or the GOP would not have united like they did.

But the GOP and Trump stood strong, unlike so many things the GOP collapses on, providing the GOP with a major energizer if this seat iscstill open.

I greatly respect John McCain – he was a hero. But he was far from perfect, and I can make a long list of his flaws and errors.

Being centrist or whatever you want to call middling has ZERO correlation to being right.

You rant about “extremism” as if it is an absolute given that the mid point between two competing views or policies is where the truth lies.

That is FALSE – The truth lies where the facts dictate, sometimes, left, sometimes right, sometimes in the middle. In fact in most issues of controversy it is LESS likely to be in the middle than anywhere else.

My “moderate” is not about compromise, is not about centrism. It is about making the best possible choices – going where the facts dictate without reference to party.

I am with the left on innumerable issues. While at the same times at odds with them on the METHODS employed to accomplish those issues.

I am often with the right on reducing government – but not on many many other things.

Further I find myself frequently supporting Trump – or not attacking him.
Not because he is right in what he says, but because I support his actions – even if I do not support his reasons.

The point is whatever you want to label it, the alternative to left and right and our current political divisions in not deifying centrism.

It is going where the facts ALL the facts lead. It is getting things correct – not getting them left, right or center.

Terms. Moderate and left are hard to mix even if no one knows what they mean exactly.

Lets say, where are the moderate Dems? They exist one can find them by looking up the house and senate ratings in ideological order. But those people with rankings like 60% conservative or liberal are all but anonymous and are not running for POTUS, or if they do, they get laughed at, there was one on the dem side running against clinton and sanders, I can’t remember his name can you?

Maybe the question we want to know the answer to is “who is a relatively moderate politician, who is still charismatic enough to get votes, on either the gop or dem side who is willing to run for POTUS?”

If there was such a person would moderates vote in the primaries enough to give such a person a chance?

Yes, my answer to you was sharp, I admit. Why? My answer going to be old tired territory. Your political ideas are reliably gop partisan and are an example of what I think has gone wrong in our country. In this case I was posting about an idea, he very opposite of your idea of politics as I see it, the idea that a few gop senators were breaking ranks with party loyalty and don’t I wish there would be more like them on both sides trying to do something more high minded than the partisan shitfest. Your post in response to mine was just a yay trump isn’t he marvelous message.

Priscilla, there is no point in the yay trump universe and my universe trying to talk. I am not interested in the yay trump universe, its dead to me.

Or maybe you could accept that NO ONE is every getting the leaders they want – no matter what they want, and if we are inherently going to put dangerous people in office, maybe we should reduce the power of government.

“Your post in response to mine was just a yay trump isn’t he marvelous message.”

It was not, grump. It was an attempt to make the point that Stephens, who thinks very much like you, when it comes to Trump, recognized that the kind of hyper-partisan, evidence-free accusations that dragged this process into the mud, were only blunted by Trump, who knows how to mud fight.

You are so tribal in this, yet so convinced that I’m the tribal one, that you won’t acknowledge that this debacle was not Trump’s fault in any way. He is the president, he nominated a candidate for the Supreme Court, and then, until it became a freaking 3-ring circus, stayed out of it entirely. Once the demand for the FBI was made, he had to be brought back in, because the FBI is in the executive branch, and had already declined to investigate.

He had a couple of choices ~ he could have pulled the nomination, he could have refused to order the reopening of the background check, he could have done nothing…. (he also could have kept his mouth shut, but that’s asking too much, I guess)

From that point, we can discuss. Except that you won’t. Because Trump.

Priscilla – much of the tactics or the left, the democrats and those here are so Mccarthyite.

“Do you know or have you ever defended Trump over anything ?”

I am deeply tired of adding to my posts which everyone already thinks are to long the nbumerous disclaimers that I did not vote for Trump, and do not support some of his policies or some things he has said.

This is a game the left plays. Having defeated McCarthy they have borrowed and expanded on his tactics.

Everything is not about Trump. In fact most things are only about Trump, because he is doing them or because he is accused of that.

If something is bad – it is bad if Obama does it, it is Bad if Trump does it.
If something is good , it is good if Trump does it, it is Good if Obama does it.

For the left, for the democrats, for too many here.

The act does not matter in an of itself.

The good or evil of an act depends solely on its relation to Trump.

We can not discuss right and wrong independently, as it is impossible to get past the effect Trump has on so many peoples views of right and wrong.

-"I was a thug," a "mischievous child"-"I got into fights."-"I drank and did–and consumed substances that weren't always legal."-"I might have drank a six-pack in an hour before going back to class" pic.twitter.com/fesvtAPtFH

Dearley, welcome. But dont jump to conclusions….. “I’ve been in search of an intellectual exchange of ideas on politics free of hateful rhetoric, and name calling”

We have good exchanges, but we do have some that resort to that which you seek to avoid.

But that seems to be isolated to 2-3 individuals that keep those exchanges between themselves for the most part. Most exchages are above board.

And although the site is “The New Moderate”, the ideologies range from moderate California and Vermont to moderate North Carolina (conservative) libertarian to moderate Pennsylvania libertarian .And that results in a vastly different definition of ” moderate”.

Welcome! Stick around. Most comments are well thought out and I have learned much from our forum. Getting the e-mail notifications allows for an easy way to determine the actual temperament of the comment and can be deleted quickly. But disagreements do happen since we have the never Trumpers to the small government libertarians (of which I seem to lean)

But it would be nice for some new thoughts to enter into the discussions. We have had some enter and when they don’t find complete support for their thinking, they disappear.

Glad you found us, Dearley. We do have heated exchanges here, and I’ve given up trying to moderate them. (In fact, I’ve pretty much given up trying to convince anyone to shift deeply held beliefs.) But by Internet standards, this is a civil, lively and well-informed group.

I’d like to reiterate “well informed”. I see, more and more that we are becoming more galvanized than ever in our political minds. Perhaps that’s naive. I’ve never been as engaged before as I am now. Maybe it’s just always been this bad. I’m glad I found you too.

According to Pew we were edging slowly together politically until 2008.

It should not be surprising that the more government does, the more conflict we will have.

I have strongly blamed the left for out current hostility. Which self evidently significantly predates Trump. There are innumerable arguments that support that. Conflict is intrinsic to modern progressive ideology.

But anyone regardless of party seeking to expand the power of government is inherently increasing conflict. Everyone is never going to agree on what we do through government and the more government does the less we will agree. This would be true – even if it were the right seeking to grow government

The FBI didn’t investigate any of the recent claims about Kavanaugh lying under oath.

“Here’s a list of the people who we know have not been interviewed:

A suitemate of Kavanaugh’s has now told the New Yorker he remembers hearing at the time about the incident Deborah Ramirez has recounted. Ramirez, who has been interviewed, had claimed that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a dorm party at Yale. The suitemate, Kenneth G. Appold, now says he is “one-hundred-per-cent certain” that he was told the culprit was Kavanaugh. He does say he never discussed this with Ramirez, but he claims an eyewitness described the episode to him at the time. Appold has tried to share this story with the FBI, but there’s no indication the FBI is willing to hear from him.
A classmate of Kavanaugh’s at Georgetown Prep now strongly challenges one of Kavanaugh’s assertions under oath. The person told the New Yorker that he heard Kavanaugh talk repeatedly about Renate Dolphin as someone “that everyone passed around for sex” (the witness’ words), and even heard Kavanaugh singing a rhyme that included the words “you wanna get laid, you can make it with REE-NATE.” Kavanaugh (and many others) described themselves in their yearbook as a “Renate Alumnius,” but Kavanaugh has denied under oath that this was a sexual reference, claiming, ludicrously, that it was intended to show “affection.”
This classmate is not named by the New Yorker. But he put his name on a statement to the FBI and Judiciary Committee that makes this claim, and he is prepared to talk to the FBI. There is no indication this happened.
James Roche, one of Kavanaugh’s roommates at Yale, has written a piece for Slate that claims Kavanaugh lied under oath about his use of slang and his drinking. Roche claims that Kavanaugh “regularly” blacked out. Roche has offered to talk to the FBI, but there’s no indication this happened.
Roche also pointedly added of Kavanaugh: “He said that ‘boofing’ was farting and the ‘Devil’s Triangle’ was a drinking game. ‘Boofing’ and ‘Devil’s Triangle’ are sexual references. I know this because I heard Brett and his friends using these terms on multiple occasions.” Roche concluded that Kavanaugh “has demonstrated a willingness to be untruthful under oath about easily verified information.”
NBC News reports that the FBI has not contacted dozens of people who could potentially corroborate the allegations against Kavanaugh or testify to his behavior at the time. This includes many people who knew either Ford or Ramirez at the time, and people who actually approached the FBI offering information.
The Post reports that Ramirez’s lawyers provided the FBI with a list of more than 20 people who might have relevant information, but “as of Wednesday, Ramirez’s team had no indication that the bureau had interviewed any of them.”
Blasey Ford’s legal team today put out a list of additional people who have not been contacted by the FBI, some of whom were prepared to corroborate that she had in the past discussed being the victim of a sexual assault by a federal judge.
Neither Ford nor Kavanaugh have been interviewed by the FBI. As the Brookings Institution’s Susan Hennessey points out: “It is inconceivable they could close a real investigation without re-interviewing Kavanaugh.””
(From Washington Post)

Trump said that the FBI was going to be allowed to investigate anything they believed they needed to. Was that really true? Or just another lie? Did someone in the white house staff set the narrow limits? Seems hard to believe that the FBI on their own volition would choose such a limited scope.

I am entirely sick of the whole SC war, I wish it had never happened, its done damage to everything and some of both the dem and gop senators have behaved miserably.

Unfortunately to someone like me who is just sick of the entire shebang and wishes we could just stop this and try to repair the damage somehow, this is going to continue no matter what happens. Confirm K and the digging will still go on as it did over the years with bill clinton until every detail of K’s life has been fought over like ground in some back and forth boundary in Europe. It will take years, maybe decades.

This could have been more or less settled by doing a comprehensive investigation, which they clearly did not. So, great, be very clever, say you will investigate and then carry out a very limited very quick survey. Things will only stay in this sick state or get worse.

I would not want to be a gop senator or a member of his/her family who votes against K, the loonies would overrun their lives.

Believe it or not Jay I wish they gop will just confirm K and take credit with their supporters and catch hell from the rest of us that will be in the air for a very long time and catch up with them in the course of time.

Among the villains in my book is Cory Booker, who lost all control of his rhetoric and the likes of Orin Hatch, who described Ford as “an attractive witness” and when questioned changed his adjective to “pleasing”. Term limits.

Who am I supposed to choose between a group of ancient oblivious white men and a group of screaming protesters?

Had trump followed Sasse’s advice and chosen someone more moderate then we would not be here. But, trump must divide us, its his nature.

Grump, you and I both are sick of this circus. IMO it will not end either.

What better for Nancy Pelosi to have as speaker to discredit republicans than investigations of both the president AND supreme court justice. And both may result in impeachment proceedings.

One thing it has done, unified a large number on bothbsides that the FBI is as useful as teets on a bull. While the rights thinking comes from the Comey and Clinton issues, the left’s now comes from the K background checks.

And one has to wonder, if they missed everything that he is accused of, how effective is any background check they perform on those in sensitive positions?

Ron, this did not make me doubt the FBI, it made me doubt if they were allowed to do their job or were greatly limited from above.

Did Pelosi’s way of dealing with this protect Ford’s interests, safety, and well being? No! Did Avenatti’s way of dealing with this protect Swetnick? No! Did the highly limited investigation, whoever it was that limited it, and it is hard to believe that such limitations originated anywhere but in the WH, protect K’s reputation? No!

K, Ford, Swetnick are all pawns to be sacrificed by people who have an agenda. K, Ford, and Swetnich are now in the meat grinder, forever.

Grump, I suspect you may not agree with my thinking, but I place all this mess at the feet of Shumer and Feinstein.

So here is how that conversation might have taken place.
July 2018,
F, “Chuck, I have a letter from X that says K molested her while in HS.”
S, “thats good, we can use it against K if we need it.”
F, “but Chuck, the FBI is doing background checks now and if I can get X to agree to a confidential investigation now, we can share that with the rest of the committee and stop his nomination if anything is found”
S, “but we are not sure what X says is true or not. But what we can do is keep this as a feather in our hats and pull it out if it looks like K is going to get approved.”
F, “And if there is not enough GOP defectors to stop his nomination?”
S, ” Diane you know the GOP always caves in when something that would be this negative comes up. Once you release that information as a last minute “gotcha”, the GOP will run from K like mice when the lights turn on in the basement of the capital building”
F, “but wont that further divide the country that is already so divided and possibly energize the GOP electorate”
S, “division is GOOD! Insures we have a voice. Energizes our base and our base is bigger than their base. Then we can stop Trump and let Pelosi begin impeachment hearings. Might not go anywhere, but further divides us and make for GOOD press!”
F. OK then, I won’t tell anyone other than our Judiciary members and make sure they know to keep quite. No FBI investigation now and then we will spring this on them if needed”
S “right, if we can’t stop him up front, we can do it at the last minute. Those GOP members will never know what hit him or them.Collins, Murkowski and Flake will run from him in a heart beat and that will keep our turncoats, Manchin and Heidcamp, in our voting block. Then we can block any further nominations until after the election when I become majority leader. Paybacks are hell unless your the one paying back, then they are most enjoyable”.

Had the investigation occurred in July/Aug, all of this would have been investigated as part of a “complete” background check as all Feinstein would have had to do was give them the letter and even the president might not have known until after the background check come out and he read it. Had their been truths verified, then he could have pulled the nomination if he so desired or the judiciary could have voted no to his confirmation.

Grump – I do not have much sympathy for Swetnick.
Get into bed with Avantti – and you know what you are getting.
Regardless, she did not privately forward her allegations to the Senate, she made them publicly. When you do that you can expect public scrutiny and public criticism.

As to the investigation – it was never going to satisfy you unless they “got Kavanaugh”.
Another week another 100 witnesses, another half dozen stupid allegations, would not change anything.

The FBI investigation was never going to change anything. – because it is nearly impossible to corroborate ancient history. Which is one of the reasons for coming forward earlier.

Well, no, I do not have a bug in Feinsteins office, which is what I would need to judge this product of your own ideas about things. Anyone can speculate and their political beliefs will provide the form that the speculation takes.

I could write long juicy speculations about a lot of the people I regard as bad actors. Its just an exercise in creative writing.

Grump, just the act of voting assumes some form of speculation on how you assume a candidate will vote on issues. So speculating on that or what they may have said to each other is somewhat the same.

With that, I will take back EVERYTHING I said about Feinstein after listening to Collins outstanding (IMO) speech. In that she said the F letter was leaked and no one knows who leaked it. So until that is finalized, I take back what I have said since the circus began. Problem is, not one news outlet and specifically Fox and NPR/PBS said Feinsteins office did not do that.

While there are something’s Feinstein clearly bears responsibility for.
Sitting on the allegation, not bringing it to the SJC is one – and there are others – I think it is time for Feinstein to retire – Grassley and Hatch too.

Feinstein should not be blamed for what can not be established atleast to the same standard as necescary to dismiss Kavanaugh.

BUT democrats as a whole can be blamed, There were few with access to this letter,
and those are all democrats.

The thing is, if Feinstein believed the charges, or even felt that they should be investigated, why didn’t she go to Grassley and say, listen, we’ve got a big problem here? The Senate Judiciary Committee has its own investigators ~ that’s been true for decades, and they can also ask the president to reopen an FBI background check, as they did last week. If Feinstein had fulfilled her responsibility as ranking member of the committee, back in July, instead of recommending Ford to a couple of activist lawyers who started orchestrating her allegations as a political hit job, this may have been a different process.

So, I guess I’m not as willing to let Feinstein off the hook for this circus. If Democrats wanted a full, months long FBI investigation, the time to request it was months ago, not after the confirmation hearings ended.

I read today, that the FBI discovered that Ford’s friend, who was supposedly at the party, has said that she felt pressured by Ford’s legal team to change her story. That’s witness tampering, and it’s what happens when a mob is running the show. (Linking HotAir, a moderate conservative site, because the original article is behind a paywall) https://hotair.com/archives/2018/10/05/wsj-ford-ally-pressured-keyser-change-story/

Priscilla, thanks for this link. Collins referenced this in her 45 minute bit by bit analysis of this whole mess. More people should take the time to listen to it before chastizing her for her support. And I was not that familiar with her prior to this address, but if that is the analysis she does with most important decisions, I respect her and the Maine voters forelecting her in a more independently liberal state.

Too bad we could not figure out how to get a third party ticket of Manchin/Collins or Collins/ Manchin

Feinstein bears some responsibily for the circus.
Democrats as a whole bear FULL responsibility.

The left, democrats and others – even here, seem to think that iit is moral to drag others through the mudd.

If democrats though “boofing” meant “anal sex” – why were they asking about it ?
IF “the devils triangle” is sexual rather than alcoholic – why were they asking about it ?
If Georgetown Prep students comments were ment to imply that Renate was easy – why were Senators asking about that.

With each of these, they are only relevant – if they were non-consensual AND true.

Everything that the left, Democrats and some here, claim Kavanaugh lied about are things they should have been ashamed of bringing up.

“You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

In their efforts to “get Kavnaugh” – myriads of people have been slimed, and made public spectacle of things long past, things of no known truth, and if true not relevant.

The story of Ms Ramirez should be a horrible embarrassment to her. But she brought it up herself.

Kavanaugh actually appoligized for even the hurtful implications of comments in the Georgretown prep yearbook and the harms to others this circus brought about.

Rather than skulk back into their caves – democrats sought to wallow in filth and innuendo,
the very things you want to be true even though they are dubious, in order to “get kavanaugh” reflect badly on you.

Well, I’m no lawyer, and you’re married to a defense attorney extraordinaire 😉 So, maybe it’s not witness tampering. But it sure as heck seems like it, and, if it’s not illegal, it’s immoral, as you say.

I do not consult my wife on posts regarding the law.
I post for myself. I sometimes talk about her – I am very proud of her, and to be her husband, and of what she does. We share alot of views. We do not share all our views.

We do talk with each other about law – ALOT. Mostly about her cases.
I provide her with many things – most of which she is very very food at on her own.
But two perspectives are better than one, and what I concur with her and what I disagree, helps he improve her own already excellent arguments.

It is totally impossible to expect law enforcement to completely preclude their own views about politics – or anything else from influencing the way they do their jobs.
We should expect them to try. We should not expect perfect success.

As I understand the effort to get Leyland to change her statement, it is typical of an officer with a perspective – it happens all the time – and “republican” officers do it too.

I have no problems with people being upset about it. I expect that there should be some consequences for the agent. Good government requires constant vigilance.
But this is not a crime. I do not even think it should cost her job.

That does not make it right.
Everything that is “wrong” should not be illegal.
Our standards for agents of government should be higher than those for others (not lower as so many seem to think) Though even I would be far faster to fire police officers for behavior bordering on criminal than to convict them. We should all remember that the appropriate consequence is NOT always criminal prosecution.

One of the problems with the recent Kavanaugh mess, is that Too many allowed the importance of the act being alleged to dwarf rational thought on the strength of the evidence.
The standard for Kavanaugh should not have been “beyond a reasonable doubt”, it also should not have been – any allegation that can not be immediately refuted is sufficient.
I do not know whether Ford is telling the Truth (or Kavanaugh). I choose to beleive both – because I can not and likely never will be able to absolutely disprove either.
I could absolutely be wrong about that. Kavanaugh could be a thwarted rapist. Ford could be a politically motivated liar. It is unlikely we will ever know.

We have to figure out how to come to grips with things we can not know for certain.
Emotionally charged decision making and massive efforts at defamation are NOT the answer.
Trump’s remarks regarding Ford were a mistake. Though a small one from a justifiably upset and frustrated president. Just as Kavanaugh’s testimony was that of an angry innocent man – not a dispassionate judge. On that Thursday – he was a man falsely accused, not a judge and that is the standard that should apply.

The same with witness tampering and obstruction of justice.

Doing your job within the actual constraints of the job should never be a crime – even if one group does nto like your choice. The left is criminalizing politics.

I really do not like Manafort. But thinking someone is a sleezy political profiteer, does not make them a criminal.
Manafort stands accused of witness tampering.
Sorry, sending a news article that supports your claims on other matters to a potential witness NOT NAMED BY THE PROSECUTION, is not witness tampering.

Using the justice system to criminalize a defendants efforts to defend themselves – that borders on criminal.

I do not want a country where Trump firing an FBI director that pretty much everyone had problems with, who was clearly playing pollitical games – if not partisan political games is obstruction of justice.
I do not want a country where a defendant’s efforts to find supportive witnesses can be charged as a crime – much less convicted.
I do not want a country where an FBI Agent who pushes a little too hard to get a witness to modify their statement is committing a crime. That doesn’t mean that is right or free of consequences.

I do not want the law being politically weaponized.

It is bad enough that we have weaponized politics.

Andre McCarthy has an excellent editorial on Kavanaugh, and the Trump investigation.
And the political warfare of the left.

The fact that you, I or anyone else, thinks that someone is a bad person, or has done bad things, is not sufficient justification to direct the investigatory (or any other) power of government at them. If the left wants an investigation of Trump – find something credible. Thus far you have nothing.

Did Trump prohibit the FBI from investigating rumours that the man in the moon heard someone say that heard someone else say Kavanaugh blacked out one time ?

Even James Comey said the FBI was up to this – of course the same James comey under oath told congress that the FBII had reviewed 650,000 of the emails on Abendin’s laptop in 2 days (when they had actually only looked at about 3500, and many have STILL not be reviewed)

Everyone knew the day that the Senate agree to the FBI investigation that we would have a week of batshit crazy allegations, and that no matter what democrats would claim the investigation was not sufficient.

Grump, I will suggest to you that confirming Kavanaugh is NOT going to make republicans happy. Dem’s have kicked a hornets nest, and there is going to be retribution.
I am not speaking for myself, but from our recent political history.

I do not doubt much of what you say of the left is true – but those on the right are even angrier. They have been borked and high tech lynched and now Kavanaughed.

Regardless their focus would have been on Ford’s testimony – if they could corroborate some of it, that would make here claims more credible.

That is the fundimental issue.

The claims that Kavanaugh “lied” are complete garbage.

They reflect the mangling of english that is so common when you have made up your mind.

Differences of opinion are NOT lies.

If you want to use these broad defnitions of “lie”
Then I guess we should prosecute Ford because 4 people say her story about the party is wrong – and that is actually a difference on a matter of fact not oppinion.

If YOU wish to be considered credible – start using the same standards for the people you support and those you do not.

“A suitemate of Kavanaugh’s has now told the New Yorker he remembers hearing at the time about the incident Deborah Ramirez has recounted.”

Do you know what hearsay is ?
In this instance you are dealing with double hearsay.

“Ramirez, who has been interviewed, had claimed that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a dorm party at Yale. ”
No that is not what Remirez claimed. She claimed that a person that she could not identify exposed themself to her while she was drunk off her ass and surrounding by plastic penises.
That a third person that she also can not identify said call the person she beleives exposed themselves to her “Kavanaugh” as he left.

“The suitemate, Kenneth G. Appold, now says he is “one-hundred-per-cent certain” that he was told the culprit was Kavanaugh. He does say he never discussed this with Ramirez, but he claims an eyewitness described the episode to him at the time. Appold has tried to share this story with the FBI, but there’s no indication the FBI is willing to hear from him.”

I was told by an unidentified third party is HEARSAY. It is not evidence of anything.
It is not admissible.

“A classmate of Kavanaugh’s at Georgetown Prep now strongly challenges one of Kavanaugh’s assertions under oath. The person told the New Yorker that he heard Kavanaugh talk repeatedly about Renate Dolphin as someone “that everyone passed around for sex” (the witness’ words), and even heard Kavanaugh singing a rhyme that included the words “you wanna get laid, you can make it with REE-NATE.” Kavanaugh (and many others) described themselves in their yearbook as a “Renate Alumnius,” but Kavanaugh has denied under oath that this was a sexual reference, claiming, ludicrously, that it was intended to show “affection.””

Is this really where you want to go ? Then Beto O’Rourke can drop out now.

First you are one again dealing with HEARSAY. And just to be clear, there is not an actual conflict with Kavanaugh’s testimony. But you would have to understand the difference between “I said something” and “I did something”.
Kavanaugh testified that things were SAID that should not have been SAID.

“This classmate is not named by the New Yorker. But he put his name on a statement to the FBI and Judiciary Committee that makes this claim, and he is prepared to talk to the FBI. There is no indication this happened.”
You have the list of people the FBI interviewed ?
If the person is unnamed by the New Yorker how is it that you know they are named to the FBI and Judiciary committee ?

“James Roche, one of Kavanaugh’s roommates at Yale, has written a piece for Slate that claims Kavanaugh lied under oath about his use of slang and his drinking. Roche claims that Kavanaugh “regularly” blacked out. Roche has offered to talk to the FBI, but there’s no indication this happened.
Roche also pointedly added of Kavanaugh: “He said that ‘boofing’ was farting and the ‘Devil’s Triangle’ was a drinking game. ‘Boofing’ and ‘Devil’s Triangle’ are sexual references. I know this because I heard Brett and his friends using these terms on multiple occasions.” Roche concluded that Kavanaugh “has demonstrated a willingness to be untruthful under oath about easily verified information.””

The “boofing” claim has been beaten to death and thoroughly debunked. There are no credible factual references from the time. I have heard of no one who has even found an actual reference to “boofing” from the time.
There are alot of similar “slang” from that period and other periods that innumerable different meanings.

I am slightly older than Kavanaugh – I am not familiar with either term in either alleged context in the 80’s

There is no way you can claim that you know the meaning of some phrase in a yearbook based on your own oppinion of what you thought it meant 40 years ago.

Regardless, you will beleive what you want.

“NBC News reports that the FBI has not contacted dozens of people who could potentially corroborate the allegations against Kavanaugh or testify to his behavior at the time. This includes many people who knew either Ford or Ramirez at the time, and people who actually approached the FBI offering information.”

I am sure that the FBI has not contacted dozens of people – who exactly like those you cite above have nothing relevant to add.

“The Post reports that Ramirez’s lawyers provided the FBI with a list of more than 20 people who might have relevant information, but “as of Wednesday, Ramirez’s team had no indication that the bureau had interviewed any of them.””

Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t.
There are 330m people in the US – most were not interviewed by the FBI.

Everyone was aware when Flake asked for an investigation limited to the credibile allegations before the senate, that democrats were going to try to manufacture a limitless investigation.

“Blasey Ford’s legal team today put out a list of additional people who have not been contacted by the FBI, some of whom were prepared to corroborate that she had in the past discussed being the victim of a sexual assault by a federal judge.
Neither Ford nor Kavanaugh have been interviewed by the FBI. As the Brookings Institution’s Susan Hennessey points out: “It is inconceivable they could close a real investigation without re-interviewing Kavanaugh.”””

And Hennessey would be wrong.
Ford and Kavanaugh testified under oath. They were cross examined thoroughly.

The FBI’s job was to seek corroboration of Ford’s story.
Not to do a brand new background check on Kavanaugh looking nto every idiiotic allegation that came in over the transome.

Whatever the FBI actually investiigated, there is very little doubt the press will spend a great deal of effort trying to find actual damning proof against Kavanaugh.

If you beleive the FBI screwed up or that the investigation was limited – you can count on the fact that not only will the left wing nut media say that repeatedly, they will engage in herculean efforts to PROVE serious misconduct.

If they do – Kavanaugh is dead. That has always been true.

I do beleive the FBI did their job – we already know that one agent tried to strong arm Leland into retracting or weakening her claim that she did not know Kavanaugh.
But no they did not interview every human who ever heard of Kavanaugh.

But the NYT and WaPo are free to do so.

If there is actual evidence that actually corroborates any misconduct. and even if there isn’t – we will all hear about iit.

Oh, and of course the FBI was constricted and some day the document doing that may come out.
Meantime, I am in mourning for the country I love, but no longer respect. Trump and the unprincipled people in Congress, and that now includes Collins (Flake is, well, a flake) have taken away my faith in this government, and that includes Dems.

I have no idea what constraints were put on the FBI – though the public direction they received from the SJC was – to investigate the credible allegations before the SJC and to complete that investigation in a week.

I would be interested if there were other constraints.

I am not interested in claims that the FBI did not investigate the meaning of early 80’s slang, or try to determine precisely what sometime inebriated 36 years ago means.

Nor am I interested in the allegations of people who did not come forward until after the circus started, and are making allegations that are hearsay and speculation, without any corroboration.

There are only rare instances in which hearsay is admissible – for good reason.

Much of what you claim was not investigated is hearsay. It is not evidence.

You need to watch it. She talked about American values, the importance of due process and the presumption of innocence. Also talked about the dangers of mob rule. And given her position as a pro-choice, liberal Republican from New England, she took a political risk. Calling her a coward is pretty despicable, in my opinion. But then, the Washington Post tried its best to destroy Kavanaugh, so I get it.

There MUST be a burden of proof and it MUST rest with the accuser.
The proper standard is NOT beyond a reasonable doubt – where ones life liberty or property are not threatened.
But it MUST be higher than mere accusation – when government is involved.
At a bare minimum the 14th amendment would require equal protection and due process.

I have stated before K has no right to a job on the supreme court.
That remains correct. Further I do not think there is any issue related to how a senator makes their decisions that is subject to judicial review. i.e. if Schumer says his reason is something completely wrong, there is no remedy but to elect a different senator.
Put simply the standard is up to each senator.

That said – it is still logically – if not justicably a standard higher than mere accusation or the system fails.

Given that an accusation is insufficient – Kavanaugh’s confirmation should not hinge on Ford.
Because Ford has not offered more than a mere accusation.

The senate should have cross examined her far more critically – but there was way too much posturiing and fear related to appearances to do the job correctly.

Kavanaugh’s testimony – beyond denying the accusation and providing his diary was near irrelevant.
It is NOT Kavanaugh’s credibility that matters – it is F’s.

This is not “he said, she said”. This is “she said, no one confirms anything”.

There remain exceptions to the fact that this fight has brought the right together.

There will also remain some points of contention.

Sasse is sort of correct that Trump is the wrong person to lead this crusade.

But he did lead it. Further Sasse did not.

I have noted that republicans had a significant risk in this.
While Trump was in fact right to defend Kavanaugh – though he should not have gone after Ford, being right would not have mattered if further corroboration was found for Ford’s accusation.

Trump took a risk. and has thus far proved right.

Sasse did not. Your republican moderate heros did not.

There is a public fight going on right at this moment be between the past leadership of the ACLU and the present leadership.

The ACLU came out against Kavanaugh for legal reasons – which BOTH past and present ACLU support.
But the ACLU also came out against Kavanaugh over the Ford accusations.
Ira Glasser and the ACLU of the past noted that ACLU is about “Civil Liberties”
They are specifically about the presumption of innocence and protecting the civil rights of even those who are repugnant – such as Nazi’s

Trump came out on the side of the past ACLU, not the current progressive ACLU

I doubt Trump did so out of high minded civil liberties reasons. At best Trump was arguing that priviledged white males are entitled to their civil rights.
He was RIGHT, but missed and probably still does that EVERYONE is.

But the question is
Where was Ben Sasse ?
Where was Jeff Flake ?
Where were your heros ?

Where was the ACLU ?
Where were democrats ?

You can demand an investigation. That is not the issue.

But Trump and only a few others, gave Kavanaugh the presumption of innocence.
It is unfortunate that Trump would only do so for priviledged white males.
But that is alteast a start.
The cure for the lack of civil rights of the oppressed is the OLD ALCU,
It is NOT to take away everyone’s.
It is certainly not to place the accuser over the accused merely because the accuser is some protected class.

So sorry Grump – this is not over yet, and could still blow up.
But if it does not, Trump has won – big time.
Your hero’s have been found wanting.

And this will likely have very broad implications.
It enhances Trump’s credibility and political power on EVERYTHING.

Even though the Mueller investigation and Trump/Russia, and the FBI/DOJ issues were all back burner they are likely to move to the front.

If you have been paying attention things expanded beyond Rosenstein and the DOJ/FBI were meeting with DNC lawyers regarding the Steele Dossier in Oct. 2016.

Grump.“This could have been more or less settled by doing a comprehensive investigation, which they clearly did not. ”

Your right! Had this been done when the democrats received the info, they would have received the information they wanted, the FBI would have had more time if there was anything further to review, the whole committee would have received a more comprehensive report and the country would have been saved from the Feinstein, Shumer and Co. circus.

Too bad thatvdid not happen. The country would be better off. But the demkcrats would still be protesting.

One of the 17 Holton-Arms graduates that signed the letter saying they beleive Ford was lifelong freind Monica McClean.

Ford’s former boyfreind has provided a sworn statement that Ford provided advice to a friend taken a lie detector to join the FBI. That Friend was Monica McClean who was living with Ford at the time. McClean denies ever being helped to pass a polygraph.

McClean quit the FBI in 2016 suddenly just prior to Trump taking office.

Ford wrote the letter to Feinstein on July 30 – McClean was at Reboth with Ford on that day.
Ford testified she wrote the letter alone, and had no help.

McClean is the Former FBI agent who contacted Keyser trying to get her to change her story.

McClean’s lawyer was a ranking lawyer at DOJ in the area of National Security. He was involved with the Carter Page wiretap.

That layer resigned from DOJ shortly after McCabe was put on leave by the FBI.

There are also less direct connections between McClean and Schumer.

McClean’s partner while she was at SDNY is currently working on the Cohen case.

Micheal Bromiwich – one of Ford’s pro-bono attorney’s is the former assistant to Andrew McCabe.

It is easiier to beleive some conspiratorial possibilities than to beleive Kavanagh attempted to rape Ford.

But more importantly it is easy to beleive that Ford and her friends and legal team – all well connected with the FBI tried hard to orchestrate the FBI investigation in the expectation they could control it.

Who knows what the answer is. With two distinct news outlooks playing to their 35%-40%, only division will continue.

Stories like this will be “breaking news” on Fox and conservative sites. Stories like this will be “breaking wind” on CNN, NBC, CBS, etc. Both will play to their base.

What I fear is we will never know answers. Ford will be the false accuser for one group. K will be the sexual deviant drunk for others.

The never Trumpers will continue to post negative comment, true or false. If its on twitter, facebook or anywherenon the internet, it has to be true. Others will say “Fake News, Lies” no matter if documentation exist to show otherwise.

The question becomes one of how to fund and maintain a truely.middle ground news outlet that only reports actual documented supported stories and when that does jot exist, then both sides of the issue is reported and debated without yelling and guest talking over each other.

“The question becomes one of how to fund and maintain a truely.middle ground news outlet that only reports actual documented supported stories and when that does jot exist, then both sides of the issue is reported and debated without yelling and guest talking over each other.”

Yep, you nailed it. Almost the only news analysis stories I actually read these days are in The Hill, and only those that do not have inflammatory titles or sound like porn directed at one side or another. I look at the headlines for the other sources, left and right, and sigh or snicker. Paywalls keep me out of places I don’t want to go anyhow.

I loath trump just as much as the The Washington Post and NYTimes do but they have oversaturated my receptors, they need to calm down, its not helping.

Bill Clinton is a more dispicable human being than anyone has alleged regarding Trump.

Yet as much as I loath him, he was a mostly good president.

George Bush(both) was by near all accounts a good person. GHWB was even heroic.
But they were bad presidents.

Obama was a bad president. I once thought he was a good person, but I am increasingly skeptical of that.

In an election I try to vote for the candidate with good character.
Thus far I beleive that I always have.
I am so glad that in 2016 I had a choice besides Trump and Clinton even if my choice could not win.

I reserve the right to vote for the lessor evil and hope not to have to ever do so.
Though I fully expect to vote libertarian in 2020, and fully expect Trump will win big.

I do not know the truth – and anyone who claims to is lying.
But what evidence we have is increasing the probability that Ford is not only not credible but a deliberate setup.

“The real issue should have been BK lying to the committee.”

Actual lies by Kavanaugh to the SJC would be a big deal.
I have read nothing yet that is not a difference of opinion.

Further what is self evident is that you are unwilling to consider anything without factoring in your personal prejudices.

Any standard that makes BK’s testimony “perjury’ – is far worse when applied to Ford.

Whatever standards you are going to use – use them consistently.

If some aquaintance or distant roommate of K’s statement that K was frequently drunk (which does not contradict K’s testimony) or that he had blackouts – which is an opinion from a third party are going to be considered dispositive by you – then the testimony of F’s boy freind of almost a decades that she had advised Monica McClean on the workings of a lie detector test is far more so.

I doubt we will ever know the complete story. And if it does come out, the parties will be off on other stories and this might get reported on page 10, section B in the paper.

Hopefully something else will come out about a completely different subject so we can all move on. We have hashed this one out with no agreement. Some believe K, some believe F, some believe something happened to F, but not by K , some believe the GOP are the scourge of the earth, some believe the democrats played F, but one thing for certain, we are never going to agree!

Maybe not, but the revelations regarding McClean are coming increasingly close to reaching “more likely than not”, that F is not merely mistaken, but actually lying and McClean is the person behind all of this.

McClean’s involvement in everything – from start to finish is extremely troubling.
McClean’s connects to the “get Trump” cotiere inside the DOJ/FBI is deeply troubling

“Is the friend lying too?
She emphatically denied that story, and insisted no one coached her because she NEVER took a lie detector test.”

Presumably by “freind” you mean McClean.
If you have a statement by McClean that she has never taken a lie detector test – that would be a serious problem for YOU and McClean. I do not beleive you that she has said that.
McClean worked in DOJ and FBI. She took ATLEAST two polygraphs, and probably more.
Many security clearances require a polygraph. McClean worked in areas that near certain required a polygraph for her clearance. Further I am pretty sure McClean has admitted she was Polygraphed. She has DENIED that Ford helped her – though she has not done so in a sworn statement, the boy freind has said Ford did coach McClean in a sworn statement.
For most of us sworn statement trump statements to the press.

“You’re still an opinionated putz who gushes unsupported conclusions based on filtered nonsense.”

I do not beleive anything in the post about McClean is not a FACT.

The only oponion – which I left to you, is whether the FACTS come together in a way to cast doubt on Ford, or worse still suggest that we are past bad recollection and into deliberate political lying.

In my OPINION the FACTS are very close to suggesting exactly that.

The more we learn about McClean the less room there is for innocent explanations of the fact that she is all over this and connected to pretty much everyone.

You’re right, I overstated the never took ANY lie detector test.
This is what she said, per Fox News:

““I have NEVER had Christine Blasey Ford, or anybody else, prepare me, or provide any other type of assistance whatsoever in connection with any polygraph exam I have taken at anytime,” McLean said.”

And if you think any of Ford’s testimony under oath is intentionally fallacious but yet don’t complain about the untruthfulness of Kavanaugh’s testimony (he’s being investigated for that by his own Federal Court Judges) it’s fruitless to discuss any of this further with you.

That some witness contradicts Kavanaugh regarding drinking.
I have read lots of statements that purportedly contradict Kavanaugh regarding his drinking – they do not. Any difference is of oppinion or spin. Kavanaugh admitted to getting inebriated more than he should. He denied ever blacking out. Given what an alcohol blackout is the only person who can know would be you. If someone claims they know Kavanaugh blacked out – they do not. Maybe they are right, but only Kavanaugh knows. Pass out and black out are not the same. Kavanaugh did not quantify his drinking – beyond more than he should. That can not conflict with other judgements about how much Kavanaugh drank.

The other is about the 1980’s meaning of some slang words. No one has – nor will they ever establish with certainty the meaning of those words in 1982. The “urban dictionary” is neither authoratative – NOTHING can be authoritative on the meaning of slang, nor does iit go back to 1982.

I had just graduated from College in 1982. I can not tell you for certain the meaning of those words in 1982. Further there is credible evidence that Kavanaugh’s understanding was at the time shared by some others – that is all that is required to disprove any claim that he lied.

Put simply II have heard no credible claim that Kavanaugh has lied.

In the specific instance of a Supreme court nominee the standard should be pretty high.
A serious misrepresentation regarding his drinking would disqualify him.

But just so you are clear – a serious misrepresentation of his drinking would NOT be lying under oath – unless the extent of his drinking was germain.
In this instance it is not. The claim who,what,when, where claim is Ford’s not Kavanaugh’s.
The argument that he was so drunk he blacked out and does nto remember is both legally ludicrous and irrelevant. Until you have an accurate who, what, when and where, you do not get to speculate about a failure to recall because of blackouts.

The left’s idiotic claim here is that – this event happened – we do not know where, or when, but the reason Kavanaugh denies it is because at the time he was backed out and he is lying about that. That is logical garbage.

Ford is the accuser – making a specific justicable claim is her obligation. If that claim is false – that is lying under oath and possibly perjury. Mis-remembering – is a legitimate defense.
But it is starting to look as if McClean and Ford concocted this entire story when Ford was with McClean in Rehobeth in late July 2018. Thus far that appears to be the FIRST time that Ford placed Kavanaugh’s name to here allegation. That is also the FIRST documented instance of the allegation or past sexual abuse in any form. All prior allegations regarding this event are uncorroborated assertions by Ford. It is highly likely she refered to this in therapy in 2012. But documentation of that exists and we have been denied it. Ford tells us she told other people earlier – but we have no one saying she told them eariler.
I beleive we have one roommate from NC that speculated that Ford had experienced something that put her into a funk, and that the roommate told her to get her act together.

Regardless, if you can not document Ford making any reference to this prior to July 2018, the more we are finding out the less credibility her actual claim has. The more this looks manufactured.

At this point I do not think it is manufactured. I think something did happen to Ford somtime in the 80’s. But I do not beleive much more than just that – something happened to ford in the 80’s. But that beleif has been erroded by the information about McClean.
Until finding out about McClean I though the possibility this was a completely calculated politically motivated lie was very low. Now I think it is over 30% – that is that this did not happen at all. And possibly another 30% that something actually happened and McClean was told about it – possibly years ago, and that McClean came to Ford in July and said – could we say that Kavanaugh was the person who did this to you ?

If that is the case – we likely will never prove it.
But I am not sure we are done finding things out, and who knows what will turn up yet.
So I would not be so sure that Ford is in the clear.

I am not slightly interested in trying to accuse Ford of lying in the same way you seem to want to accuse Kavanaugh. I am not going to accuse Ford of lying over “differences of oppinion”.

If as an example the therapists notes come out and Ford’s story to the therapist is significantly different from what she wrote – as an example she says it was in the mid eighties or late eighties or some other point that flatly contradicts her testimony – that is not something that should be prosecuted.

If we establish that Ford coached McClean – or someone else regarding a lie detector test – I would not prosecute that. Ford not should be held to that kind of standard of accuracy for events 30 years ago.

But that works both ways. She is also not entitled to be taken credibly just based on her word over events 30+ years ago.

Jay there are a bunch of disciplinary complaints filed against K since he was nominated.
That does nto mean there was/is an investigation.

I would further note that a disciplinary complaint about a judge has to meet specific requirements – I know, I have filed one.

It can not be a crime – criminal compaints are filed elsewhere.
It can not be a complaint about an error regarding the law
that is what appeals are for.
Nearly all are legal ethics complaints specifically related to the handling of cases.
As an example – if he had exparte communications with prosecutors.

Any complaints that do not fit that legal ethiics scope will be ignored.
My guess is that all the complaints against K will be ignored.
I doubt any are being “investigated”.

It is transparently obvious that your concept of right and wrong, of true and false is so colored by your biases that you are unable to reason consistently.
You see lies and perjury in differences of spin.
You pick who you are going to beleive or diisbeleive – not based on facts, but based on what gets you the end you desire.

Because you loath Trump and Kavanaugh, you convert the remote possibility that some accusation is true into fact, and beleiive anything anyone says that appears to support your unfounded conclusion.

You are unable to judge those you like or support by the same standards.

When you are prepared to treat the evidence or the law with regard those you support, the same as you do those you loath – then it will not be fruitless to have a discussion.

This sane view reflects my own thoughts, and I assume those of Duck and Grump (and Rick too); but the remaining die hard idiots on the right will of course stumble along with denials and rationalizations as they chew at Tom’s divorce from GOP duplicity like elderly geriatrics with ill fitting false dentures.

You are likely correct that your view is coincident with that of others.
But you continue to read other peoples minds.
You can not speak for others without their permission, they get to speak for themselves
and you can never know what is in their heads, only their words.

I find Mr. Nichols remarks compelling – and his article requires but one change – replaciing republican with democrat.

The attempts to accomplish their will through “raw power” have been primarily those of democrats.

It is democrats who do not explain why they are doing as they do, or asserting that they are doing so – merely because they can.

Republicans had more than the “raw power” to bar Garland a heariing. They had the constitution, the traditions of the senate and the so called “biden rule” – i.e. the past history of DEMOCRATS.

Barring Garland even a hearing was extremely political – but it was still political within the constraints of the law, the rules, and tradition.

Arguably the behavior of democrats was to – the tradition of Bork, Thomas, and now Kavanaugh.

I have no argument with any democrat who voted against Kavanaugh because they did not like his view of the constitution. I think they were wrong, but as Graham pretty much made clear – they have guaranteed that is the way the senate will operate in the future.

But I can not support any party that offers uncorroborated accusations as the basis for ANYTHING.

I would further note that whatever the breaches of law, tradition or the constitution that republicans have done, have been entirely patterned after those of democrats.

All the significant rule changes the republicans have taken advantage of were done by democrats.

I really do not like McConnell, but he resisted “going nuclear” for years.
Reid did not. McConnell merely chose not to go back.
While the freedom of the senate to iignore a presidential nomination started near our founding, Biden is famous for formulating it as a rule.
McConnel did no more than take advantage of it.

Graham just put democrats on notice – in the past he and other republicans voted YES for democratic appointments so long as they were qualified – regardless of ideology.
Most appointments by democratic president get supermajorities to confirm.
That era has ended. Republicans did not end it democrats did.

I am neither republiican nor democrat, Republicans are wrong on many issues.
But democrats have entirely lost their minds. Further they are among the worst hypocrits in the world.

What is most damning about Mr. Nichols editorial is that it has many excellent points.
But he has completely and obviously misidentified the sole party of raw politiical power.

Jay, I agree with 98%t of what Nichols said.
I go back even further to my first presidential vote for Ike.
And, I will vote for every Dem I can in future elections, unless of course Trump switches parties. That means I may vote for some bad Dems. So be it, the Reps have ruined our Republic, and now I want revenge any way I can get it including making contributions to some Dems.
BTW: If Ford is out any pocket money, I will send a check if there is a fund for her.

However, I will not switch my registration, since I am hoping that this being NYC, there may be some Trump opposing Rep that runs in a primary (can’t vote in NY unless you are in the party of the candidate).

But she’s a brilliant woman, a intellectual heroine of the left, and has always seemed more than willing to speak her mind, even sometimes when she probably should have kept her thoughts to herself. That’s one of the things I most admire about her ~ she doesn’t weasel word her way through controversial topics. She’s even admitted falling asleep during the state of the the union addresses, because she had too much wine at dinner (and because the speeches are so boring).

She seems to be in extremely poor health these days, yet she’s hanging on to her seat on the high court, probably because she hopes to make it until Trump is no longer president and, maybe, because she wants to keep working.

She was one of 4 justices, the others being Kagan, Alito, and Thomas, who came to watch Kavanaugh’s swearing-in by Roberts. Anthony Kennedy was there as well. It’s just the kind of thing that I would expect of her, and I hope that all of the #resisters who’ve been calling Kavanaugh a serial rapist, a liar and exulting over the fact that they “ruined his life” take note that one of their own icons went out of her way to treat Justice K with dignity and respect.

I am very disturbed by Ford’s accusations against Kavanaugh.
If true he should not be on the court.
All the rest of this is garbage.
Neither K nor F should have their testimony torn appart in the way it is being done EXCEPT to address credibility – and fundimentally only F’s matters.
She is making the accusation, and her credibility must be sufficient to disqualify K BEFORE you look at anything K has said on this.

The other accusations – either do not have an actual claim – Ramirez’s I think I saw a penis, and someone told me it was K’s while I was drunk odd my ass was not worth the Senate’s time.

The Avenatti allegations were pointless. they did not actually state an offense.

Prior to this circus NO ONE was saying anything negative about K’s character. In fact he has had myriads of supporters of his character on both sides.

Many keep saying – just nominate another Gorsuch. Gorsuch graduated from Georgetown Prep AFTER Kavanaugh. In terms of character – there is not alot to distinguish them. Frankly K had MORE positive character references from both sides. There is absolutely no reason these allegations could not have been made about Gorsuch – or anyone else.

The prior attacks WERE on his politics and ideology.
Of those on Trump’s list – Kavanaugh is MOSTLY more of a libertarian conservative, than the rest – that makes him on the LEFT side of Trump’s list.
Kavanaugh is MOSTLY more likely side with the left than any other current justice on the right – including Gorsuch.

Like Gorsuch he is an originalist – though I expect to find their originalism to be fairly different – just as we are seeing that Gorsuch’s originalism is not that of Scalia.

Regardless, if the left is going to oppose anyone who is going to read the constitution and the law as written – no republican nominee is ever getting confirmed.

I have a great deal of admiration for RBG – but her jurisprudence has no foundation, and that means she can sometimes be very right and sometimes very wrong.

True objectivity does not exist, but the courts – particularly the high courts are charged with being as objective as humanly possible.

Approaching objectivity must be rule based – otherwise we do not have predictable outcomes and that means we are lawless.
Originalists understand that
RBG does not. The result is her efforts at objectivity rest on the jello of her ideology.

Yes, she looks to be “hanging on”. Should Trump get to appoint her replacement – which is likely, we are looking at political armageddon.

Kavanaugh clerked for Kennedy, and it is likely that Trump and Kennedy had an understanding that if Kennedy stepped down Trump would replace him with Kavanaugh.

That is part of the nonsense in all of this.

Just about every other possible Trump nominee would be WORSE for democrats than Kavanaugh.

I think this was a gargantuan politiical blunder on the part of D’s.
Not merely has it incredibly energized R’s immediately before midterms,
but it is another in the long list of reasons that republicans have for not trusting democrats.
That was the key to Graham’s speach.

Murkowski traded her no vote with another yes vote and voted present.
While in here instance it was with a republican senator, that is still a tradition and part of the civiility of the institution.

If some senators commits to that and fails to follow through – the tradition will end, regardless of party.

Just about every breach of traditions and institutional ciiviility we have seen started on the left. Democratic politicians do not seem to grasp the value of institutional civility,
of rules.

And yet so many here and elsewhere on the left keep pretending the inciviliity is with the right.

Even Bill Maher gets that spraying spittle at republicans while they dine out is just stupid.

And as Dana Loesch pointed out disturbing the sleep of someone who likely has a glock in a gun case under their bed is a very bad idea.

Regardless, this idea that making life hell for those who disagree with you is acceptable, oriiginates with the left, and is close to unique to the left.

“Murkowski traded her no vote with another yes vote and voted present.
While in here instance it was with a republican senator, that is still a tradition and part of the civiility of the institution.”

Joe Manchin also bucked his party.

Both of these votes are refreshing to see.

Why?. Because they were sent to Washington to represent the interest of the people in their states. Alaska has a sexual assault rate almost three times that of the lower 48. She voted the interest of her constituents. The opposite was true of Manchin. He voted the positive since the evidence did not support going againstbthe wishes of his constituents.

Now many would say voting to support your constituents interest left the station years ago. Could be, but when a huge percentage of your state asked you to vote a certain way, it is nice to see that happen every now and then instead of cowering to Shumer or McConnell like most do.

I think that most good senators (and there are more “bad”ones these days, I’m afraid) balance party loyalty with individual responsibility. Manchin votes overwhelmingly with Schumer and the Democrats, Murkowski votes more often than not with Republicans. (Of course, Murkowski ran on a write-in campaign, and defeated the GOP nominee, so she is more of an independent than most).

I don’t have a problem with party politics, until the party line itself becomes toxic, as I believe the Democrat line became in the Kavanaugh fight. The whole sordid episode was handled badly enough, but what tipped it over into toxic territory was the Democrat’s unquestioning acceptance and promotion of Michael Avenatti and the bizarre Julie Swetnick accusation.

The idea that a college sophomore would repeatedly attend high school parties where gang rape was routine, and young boys were regularly drugging girls and spiking the punch bowls, in order to facilitate these rapes, went far, far into the unbelievable realm. Swetnick claimed to have attended more than 10 of these parties, yet she never told anyone. Even more unbelievable, NO ONE ever told anyone about them ~ not the more than a dozen victims, not the bystanders that supposedly watched the “rape trains” of boys going into bedrooms to rape the drug-impaired girls… NO ONE. And then, after being granted a nationwide interview with NBC (none of the women defending K got anything like that), Swetnick basically recanted the whole lurid story, saying that she merely saw K standing around the punch bowl with other boys. Wow, that’s a shocker – a boy at a party standing around a punch bowl with his friends!

But the Dems and the media totally ran with this smear, and I think, as many have said, it was what turned the tide in favor of K, especially among genuine moderates like Susan Collins, who has not been a party-line voter in the past. And it may have convinced Manchin that his goose was cooked in WV, if he voted with a party that embraced a charlatan like Avenatti.

Priscilla, yes Manchin votes more with democrats than GOP. Yes, the opposite for Murkowski.

And to me, thats a good thing. I think that is why they get reelected. The senate has always been a more moderate deliberative body where members have to appeal to a broader view of voters, while the house has always been more divided due to the populist views held by more members and representatives being elected by much more agend driven voters.

For instance, Manchin goes against demicrats on many energy issues, while voting for programs like the ACA. Many are employed in coal and depend on piss poor insurance since insurance companies have policies where the average person in WVT can not afford it.

I would further note that one of the predicted changes is a demand for judicial bipartisanship.

And argument made here constantly. On similar but not identical to an argument I make constantly.

The obective of the court (and congress, and government as a whole) should NOT be getting the consent of both parties. It should be infringing on the rights of the least number of people without their consent. It is not whether you are republican or democrat that matters.

I would absolutely support changing SCOTUS such that in any case that involved a conflict befween the powers of government and the rights of individuals – that a 5-4 majority is NOT sufficient to rule FOR the state.

But Note I am NOT saying all decisions that disrupt the status quo must be 6-3 or greater.
That is close to what we have already in the senate, and it is a failure.

I am saying that all exercises of government power require a supermajority.

If as an example the court is trying to determine if a warrant is necescary for a search.
a 5-4 vote that no warrant is needed should mean a warrant is required, because government did not get the 6 votes needed to infringe on a right.

Is your objective to get Trump to behave better as a person or to better impact republicans ?

I am not sure those are the same.

I was disturbed by Trump’s attacks on Ford, but I have read elsewhere they were politically necescary and effective – that as the Senate could NOT go after Ford, he needed to.

I think he waited until she had been weakened enough that his attacks were more credible.

But all fo that is political.
Whether it was effective or not, it was wrong.

Of course the democrats attacks on Kavanaugh were equally wrong – whether they were effective or not.

The ends does not justify the means.

But I would note that part of Trump’s appeal to republicans is that he is not burdened with republican morality. This is also part of the reason he is so hated by democrats – Trump basically uses alinsky tactics against the left.

My thoughts. Those that like his bullying others and being an obnoxious ass is going to support the GOP regardless. Those that this is a turnoff (like me) might stay home or vote against him. I dont have a problem with him campaigning for candidates. I dont have a problem with him pointing.out the negative positions opponents hold. I do have a problem with him just running his mouth, not saying anything of substance other than personal attacks and playing to the deplorable label. Those that wear the “Proud Deplorable” label will always vote for him and his party.

But look at the trends in that chart. When he is presidential, his approval increases. When he is an ass, his approval is negative 5 to >12. And the news now is the best election projections for GOP than for months. Seems like there is a correlation.

I understand. But that does not appear to be how the world is working.

There are now “hit peices” on Collins from the left.

Which is typical of cults. Local evangelical churches split over tiny differences, and then send each other to hell over them, while being freindly and accomidating to churches that are miles appart in beleifs

This is true of the left – where deviation is not tolerated.
Collins is not on the left, she is merely a moderate republican who chose to vote for the rule of law, rather than the rule of the mob.

Now the left has “targeted” her. Wouldn’t you think that they should want to build bridges with Collins ? Even if she did not vote as they hoped on Kavanaugh, she is far more likely to than say Graham. You would think if they were going to “target” someone it would be graham.

Do democrats think the way to win elections is to attack Collins ?

Republicans disagree, but mostly they do not send each other to hell.
That is primarily a left feature.

Apparently Antifa is running portland now – with the mayor’s permission, directing traffic and harassing motorists.

I expect that Kavanaugh’s appointment will result in different outcomes for cases going forward. But not the end of the world scenario’s the left imagines.

Gorsuch is already having an effect, the court on the whole is more libertarian.
That is somewhat unifying. Libertarians are neither conservatives or progressives.
They may not be the “moderate” that TNM wants, but they reflect different values.

My sense is that Kavanaugh is less liberarian than Gorsuch but more so than Kennedy, Alito, or roberts.

We shall have to see what happens, but I would not expect earth shaking changes.
We are not going to see Rowe overturned. We are not going to see a return to the lochner era. we are likely to see a reversal or limiting of “chevron deference”.
We are likely to see the court limiting the freedom of the executive to interpret the law as they please and more of the court requiring congress to fix its mistakes.

We are likely to see less preferential treatment of unions.
We are likely to see more religious freedom
We are likely to see more scrutiny of overreach on campaign finance.

The left will paint all of these as the end of the world but taken in whole they will not change the world.

The Twitter poll is just interesting. The Gallop poll much more meaningful.

As Turley noted – losing candidates typically get MORE popular after the election.

The left and the media have spent 2 years blaming Trump for every evil they can think of.
They have been selling this garbage about the russians rigging the election.,
They have investigated the crap out of Trump,

And nothing has changed. HRC would still lose if the election were held again today.

While to some extent this is about Trump and it is about Clinton.
No matter what the left does – Trump is not actually perceived as any worse.
No matter what the left does – Clinton is not actually perceived as any better.

But it goes beyond even that.
Democrats controlled the whitehouse since 2008.
They controlled both the house and senate in 2009 and 2010
And the Senate through 2014.

The election was not just Trump vs. Clinton it was Republicans vs. Democrats.
And voters decided they did not want the democrats running the govenrment.

The left has lost because they are not wanted.
And they remain unpopular.

But why bother – the author has demonstrated total cluelessness within a few lines.

What is a crooked landlord ?
How is it that you can significantly “cheat” someone in letting apartments ?

If you rent an apartment and feel you have been cheated – leave. If you can not find something better – then you are not being “cheated” you are getting the same thing as everyone else. In addition to leaving you have fairly simple legal remedies – and in some places like NYC fairly extensive ones. Which would explain why NYC – like every other place that thinks it is tipping the balance back to even has housing shortages, and crappy public housing.

On rare occasions participants in free exchange actually do “cheat” each other.
It is rare, because people only engage in free exchange when the odds heavily favor a positive outcome.

Getting less than you hoped for – is not getting cheated. Just as getting more is not cheating.

@ dhlli, 12:49
Trump Is Just Another Crooked New York City Landlord
I see his type all the time. Here’s what tenant advocates in the city have learned about how to fight him.
By John Whitlow
Mr. Whitlow is a tenant lawyer and a law professor.
Oct. 4, 2018
The folk singer Woody Guthrie once wrote a song about life in an apartment owned by a particularly odious landlord whose business practices consisted of a brew of dodgy bookkeeping, race-baiting and corporate welfare: “Beach Haven ain’t my home!/No, I just can’t pay this rent!/My money’s down the drain, And my soul is badly bent!”
Beach Haven, of course, is the apartment complex built by Fred Trump, a place that Guthrie called “Trump’s Tower.” Fred Trump’s management of Beach Haven is also one example among many of the shady dealings and outright deceptions documented in the recent exposé about the Trump family’s real estate empire.
The story proved what anyone familiar with New York real estate has long known. Donald Trump is a homegrown creature, a species well known and justifiably loathed by most New Yorkers — the unscrupulous landlord. The rest of the country may be in a constant state of shock when confronted with the tornado of news that whirls around the Trump administration. But tenant advocates know what he is doing. More than a stooge for Vladimir Putin or the embodiment of a disgruntled — and mythical — white working class, Mr. Trump is at his core a landlord, turning a handsome profit while the rest of us live in increasingly precarious conditions.
As a tenant lawyer, I regularly interact with landlords in the city’s housing courts. They make a killing by taking advantage of a rigged system. They extract as much wealth as possible from hard-working people trying to hang on to the places they call home, with little regard for the common good or the social fabric of our city. They take advantage of tax subsidies to renovate old buildings and construct new ones, and they engage in a range of practices, lawful and unlawful, to raise rents above the threshold beyond which tenants lose the protections of rent stabilization. And they regularly discriminate against tenants on the basis of race, language, national origin and immigration status.
Much of the outrage generated by the reporting on the Trump family’s finances has focused on tax evasion, which is immense and possibly criminal, and on the myth that Mr. Trump is a self-made man. But it is no small thing that the Trump empire is built on the same kinds of predatory practices that tenants and tenant advocates deal with every day: inflated costs for repairs, which are passed on to tenants in the form of rent increases; lax government oversight over building conditions and rent levels; and racial divisiveness.
Just as the Trump family built its wealth through price-gouging and discrimination against tenants in the complex and easily manipulated regulatory environment of New York City, the Trump administration is now engaged in a scaled-up version of the same project: tax cuts for the already wealthy; the gutting of the administrative state; and a white-nationalist-inspired immigration policy.
I once represented a group of tenants in Bushwick, Brooklyn, who came home one day to find that major sections of their rent-stabilized building had been gutted. Their landlord cared little about the health and safety of his tenants — he wanted to force them out and convert the building to high-end apartments. When the residents didn’t accept the paltry buyouts he offered, he took them to court. But the tenants decided to stay and fight. They made connections with neighbors whom they barely knew. They joined a community-based organization that worked for tenants. After months of organizing, litigation and news conferences, we won, and the tenants were able to stay in their apartments, with rent abatements to compensate for the conditions they endured.
There is a long history of New York City tenants coming together to organize against landlords like the Trump family. These efforts have been most effective when tenants have constructed multiracial coalitions and have relied on tactics from rent strikes to eviction blockades to cooperative housing to strategic litigation. As we confront America’s landlord, the lesson we can draw from this history is that we must organize creatively and fight to save the place we call home.
John Whitlow is a tenant attorney and a professor at the City University of New York School of Law.”
Like I said he is a sleaze, and many people defend him. Hmmmmmm, birds of a feather……….

Woody Gutherie dies in 1967
Donald Trump graduated from College in 1968.

If you can not afford your rent – then you should move somewhere you can.

No one else is obligated to provide you with decent housing at their cost.

Is your idea of a “cheating landlord” is someone who will not give you what is theirs at the price you wish to pay ?

The Gutherie song claims Beach Haven is expensive and excludes blacks.

That is a good reason for a protest song.

It is no basis for law, nor is it even an allegation of “cheating”.

No the story did NOT “prove” anything, like your guthrie song it “accuses” (badly)

But typical of the left – an accusation is the same as guilt.

Regardless I do not doubt that many New Yorkers loath their landlords.

The left has encouraged people to beleive they are entitled.

I am a landlord. If I charge rents higher than the market – no one will rent my apartments.
I am in serious financial trouble is can not maintain a 90% occupancy of my unts.

I frequently do not evict people who ware behind on their rent – not because I am a sucker – which I am, but because, I am better off if they pay most of the time, or most of the rent, than I am evicting them.

My tenants are at the top of the lower quintile, they have jobs or SS, or both, but do not have bank accounts or credit – if they have any credit it is bad. My tenants have lots of trouble paying their rent. I work hard – mostly because it is in my interest to get them assiistance when they are in trouble – from the government, from local churches, from charities.

I have repeatedly come to agreements with local churches and chariities that if they would pay 50% of a tenants arrears that I would not evict them for atleast a year – so long as they continued to pay rent moving forward.

I like to think I do this because I am a nice guy. But I also know that it is n my own self interest to do so.

Everytime a tenant leaves for whatever reason I lose 1 months rent – always.
Most of the time I lose two, once in a while I lose as much as 6 months rent.
That is alot of money.
n the meantime I have to pay taxes, mortgage, utilities, insurance, pest services, maintenance.

I do not make money on my apartments – and I lose alot of money if you factor in my time.
It works out primarily because they are an investment.
The value appreciiates. The neighborhood improves.

I have met alot of landlords. I have met many who evict much faster than I.

I have never met one that “cheats”.

It is very nearly impossible.

When you rent – you get a lease. that is a contract. While I get to write it, no matter how I write it I can not exclude the requirement that the apartment iis habitable.

I can go to court and force my tenants to pay rent or leave.
They can go to court and force me to maintain the property if i am not.

Further if a tenant complains to the local buiildings department, even if the complaint itself is bogus the inspector will always find something they want me to do.

Comercial properties – are you saying he is ripping off citibank ? Do you even care ?

Very high end residential – are you saying he is ripping off rich people ? Do you even care ?

This is nonsense. It is like the stupidity of inner city blacks who think that somehow it is republicans that have made their neighborhoods cesspools.
Even though in most of those places no republican has held power in 75 years.

Numerous people who actually know something about Taxes (and facts) have come foreward and noted that absolutely everything Trump has done with regard to his taxes has been “above board” – not because he is some great honest guy, but because you can not operate otherwise at the level he has been his entire life.
He has armies of lawyers and accountants, and bookkeepers.
It is near certain that these OVERTLY sought to minimize his taxes.
It is near certain that everything he did was with the full knowledge of the IRS and the state and local taxing authorities.

At his income level you are audited for all taxes every year.

The criminal tax evasion claim is less credible than the Swetnick organized gang rape scheme.

Most leases run for a year. In most states they automatically renew month to month.
Most leases have provisions for exactly the situation you described.

A tenant is exactly that – a tenant. They are NOT an owner. Their “rights” are what the lease specifies. If you do not like a clause in a lease – get it struck, or rent somewhere else.
You are not obligated to rent a specific apartment.

I have already told you I own a building. The neighborhood is improving.
Someday I am going to either sell the building or convert it to a more valuable use.

It is after all MY BUILDING. I have paid for it. I maintained it over the years.

I really really hope that at some point in the future it is worth more as a home or as professional offices. or any other use that increases its value.

Absolutely guaranteed if that day comes I will be looking to move quickly to transform it to that new use.

If you do not want to be removed from the place you live because the owner has found a better use for that place than as your apartment – then BUY YOUR OWN HOME.

In my community you can buy a cheap house in the city for about 40K

That is about 250/month in mortgate and another 250 to cover taxes and insurance.

You will have to establish moderate credit. that is not all that hard.
If you are a first time home buyer you can get an FHA or VA loan for 3% down – that is little more than the deposit on an apartment.

If you buy your own home YOU will have to maintain it. Or hire someone to do so.

There is nearly a century of economic literature on rent controls.
It is abslutely universally BAD.

What is absolutely guaranteed everythere there have been rent controls with no exceptions, is:

Shift of landlords rapidly to high end rentals that are NOT covered by rent control.
Incredibly high demand for rent controlled apartments resulting in their being doled out as poliitical favors – do you think it was an accident that Charlie Rangle had two rent controlled apartments in Manhattan.

The complete collapse of housing stock for poorer people.

Do you understand that EVERYWHERE, EVERYTIME, Rent control has proved disasterous.

Rent control data is the primary data for the broader economic research that ALL priice controls and subsidies fail.

These are things that something like 98% of all economists agree on.

In fact real economic data indicate that pretty much every time the left says

“evil cheating unscrupulous …. – there ought to be a law” that the results of such laws are disasterous.

We have a major huricane about to hit Florida. Politicians are already warning people – not to
“gouge prices” or look to profit off the disaster.

This is just plain total stupidity. What you want is exactly the opposite.

We know right now almost everything that is going to be in short supply as soon as the storm dies down.

What we want is everyone from Walmart and Home Depot – which are abslutely heavily mobilized already to joe doe in Alabama who thinks he can make a buck by driving a trailer of bottled water, or gasoline or generators.

The more people do that the lower the price will be and the more of what people need they will have after the storm.

Laws against price gouging encourage people to horde.
You want the price of bottled water as an example to go up – so that people to not buy more than they need depriving others who need it more.

All of this is well understood by anyone with half a brain, but not by those on the left.

I really do not care who Mr. Whitlow or anyone else is.
CUNY is the #125 ranked law school in the US.
UofP is #7.

It is hard to find people more progressive than law school professors – I would note there are some left law professors who are brilliant.
Tribe was excellent until he completely lost his marbles with Trump’s election.
Derschowitz remains one of the premiere civil liberties attorneys in the US.

Mr. Whiitlow is an associate professor. He looks barely as old as the laws he thinks Trump broke, Regardless according to CUNY his field is community development.

Here is his CUNY page – it pretty much screems left wing nut.
It doesn’t even riise to Nasim Taleebs IYI – intellectual yet idiot.

As I pointed out repeatedly – the statue of limitations has long expired – even gthe State of New York one. Of course I was told I was wrong and did not know what I was talking about – until I cited both the federal and state law.

I get very tired of this crap. You all pretend I am some fake “know it all”, and arrogant, and must always be right.

Being right is pretty easy. Do not speak or write unless you actually know for certain that what you are saying or writing is correct.

You would not have to do that very long before grasping that the left is pretty much always wrong about everything.

There is a reason for that – the ideological foundation of the left rests on a contradiction.
That contradiction screws leftists up in everything.

To all of your defensive and ignorant (of NYC rental RE) remarks. BS.
You are in your little bubble wherever you are. You don’t know any cheating landlords? LMAO, come to NYC and get educated on how to cheat and steal from tenants and use the courts to delay and obfuscate, pay fines and continue to screw tenants who can’t find anywhere else to go to find a landlord like you with a halo over his head.
You are a babe in the woods compared to NYC slumlords and the Trumps and Kushner’s of the world. Read up on the subject, or talk to NYC tenants and landlords (they will cry their hearts out) to you before you spout about what you don’t know.
Challenge: Now try to keep your stupid rebuttal comments to less than 10,000 words.

Appeals to authority – obviously an article by an associate professor – little more than an adjunct, at a third tier law school, that manages to get published in the NYT is more credible that actual facts and law.

Various diifferent personal attacks.

Obviously I would actually rents apartments to people in a class far below anything Trump deals with – I am in a “bubble” and clueless.

Has Mr. Whiitmore even run a rental property ? Have you ?

Appeals to authority are fallacy, but even so – I have not yet seen a basis to accept that a community organizer is an authority, much less you.

But of course I am the one in a bubble ?

“You don’t know any cheating landlords?:
I do not even know what that term means – you lob it out there without defining it.

Regardless, I am sure that landlords who do not attempt to follow the law (something that is not possible), that do not honor their contracts exist.

There are a small portion of people who lack integrity in ever field. Though by far the largest number are in government – both as politicians, and civil servants.

As to actually knowing a real cheating landlord – nope.

I know landlords I do not like. I know ones who operate differently than I do.

The closest I can recall to a “unscrupulous landlord” was one who gave me a good reference on a very mentally disturb and lousy tennant in the hopes I would rent to them.
Unfortunately I did. It took me a year, several police calls, and the loss of other tenants to get rid of him.

I know landlords who rent to people that are likely drug dealers – because they actually pay the rent. I don’t. But I also do not think it is my business what my tenants are up to – so long as they do not harm my building or their neighbors.
I have rented to drug addicts – not intentionally, but oddly they proved good tenants.
I once likely rented to a couple of hookers – again not intentionally, but they were still good tenants.

Renting in the area I rent means broad exposure. I have rented to blacks, hispanics, gays, musilms, red necks. college kids, all kinds of different tenants.

I also know the landlords in my city who have gotten in trouble.
They are all the ones who rent down market from me.

You can rent a room in my city for $200/month – that gets you a bed room and a shared bath.
That is not an arrangement that tends to work well – share a toilet with several tenants and it is pretty much guaranteed to get clogged and overflow.
I know several landlords who do that. Typically there are no leases, no credit checks, no record checks, they receive payment up front, and iif you fail to pay at the start of the next month, they lock you out.
But for $200/month – you have a room that is warm and dry – a place to sleep.
I do not want to be them, but they are providing a service.
But for them, these people would be homeless.

BTW Landlords do not use the courts to delay – tenants do.
If I go to court – it is to get MY apartment back from you – or to get paid.
In my state that takes 60 days – iit can take longer, but for a tenant to draw the process out longer, they must escrow unpaid rent with the courts, and that never happens.

The courts are not that friendly a place for landlords.

BTW – why does it matter to the landlord that you can not find somewhere else to go ?

If I signed a contract with you – I am obligated to hold up my end of that contract – you are obligated to hold up yours. That includes leaving when I ask you to in a manner permitted by contract.
Finding another place to stay is your job.
I never promised to take you in for life.
You are not my family or my friends.
You are someone I agreed to provide an apartment to for a fixed period of time in return for money. That is all. I have no obligation to you beyond that.

If you need charity – look to a church.

What is it that a landlord is seeking to delay ?
What is it that a landlord is seeking to obfuscate ?
How is a landlord “screwiing” tenants – you have an apartment – you are supposed to pay for it. If you do not like that, you are free to leave.
You are obligated to find the place you wish to stay – not the landlord.

If McDonald’s sells you a burger every day for a month, is it then obligated to provide you free burgers for life ? Merely because you can not find someone else to sell you burgers at the price you wish to pay ?

Most of the Landloards I know are pretty much like me.

Yes, NYC slumlords – like the jewish guy who took $100/month to let people stay in really crappy places where people shot heroine and the toilets overflowed.
NYC closed him down – and his tenants were homeless – because no one else would provide them a crappy place for $100/month and they would not pay more.

Someone murder him. Does that sound right to you ?

I am pretty sure Trump and Kushner are only renting commercial and high end residentail spaces in NYC – obviously that makes them evil cheating slumlords.

If you want to do some research of your own try

I would also suggest reading the reiviews. Particularly the on familiar with the milwaukee market and who knows what happed after desmond left words.

I do not BTW care if tenants (or landlords) cry their hearts out.

Ultimately being a landlord is an investment. It MUST be as profitable as putting the same money into the stock market – or no one will ever be a landlord.

I put an additional “investment” of 50K in. I Break even on rents and expenses – give or take a few dollars. I get a small break on my taxes because the IRS accounting show me losing money. So that small tax break is “profit” – it is not much. In addition as the building appreciates in value – it has not done that since I bought it, that appreciation is profit. Finally the morgate gets paid and each month I own a tiny bit more of the buildings – that is my real profit. That amounts to about 4000/year, My IRA is currently making 5% so that iis a little better than the IRA, but not much. But that does not count the fact that I have alot of work to do, and no one pays me for it. So I probably would have been better off putting my money into stocks.

And you should seriously think about that.
ANY Investment with higher risk than the stock market that can not consistently deliver higher returns than the stock market – will go away.

People will not be landlords if they can not make sufficient money at it.

This crap has to stop. America needs to have a conversation at the root level, not in Washington where a bunch of suits get on a commission, spend a ton of money, write a paper and then do nothing. Race relations in this country have deteriorated in the last 10 years, along with the relationship whites have with whites on social media. We have to stop profiling, kneeling, demonstrating and bitching about something in state or federal governments not doing anything to fix a problem and fix it at the local level. No black man should be questioned because he has two white kids with him. Hell he could be married to a white woman and these could have been kids he adopted from her previous marriage.

See something say something should not cover white kids with black men unless the kids are resisting him in someway that indicate they are in trouble. And that would go with white, Hispanic, native american etc. We spend way too much time bashing one another on politics where the energy could be well spent on educating people on race relationships.

And blacks need to stop attacking whitey every time something like this hap[pens and begin a conversation where two sides can talk. Nothing happens without a conversation, not in Washington where the liberals want everything to take place, but in peoples own “backyard”. Schools, churches, civil organizations, etc.

This happened to me 15 years ago – was that Trump’s fault ?
I am pretty sure it was my obnoxious neighbors.

Ya, Know, other people who think that they have the right to but into lives other than their own. I really found it odd that a couple that had drunken fights out on their lawn at 3am, were so interested in what was happening in my home more than 100 yards away.

Regardless, Trump is not the cause of this. The left is.
Though Trump is CAUSED by this.

I presume that you think Trump is responsible for the violence and anarchy in portland over the past several months.

I guess that Trump is also responsible for the fact that the largest single reason that gets someone onto the “exhonerated list” having spent decades in prison are false allegations of rape usually disproven by DNA.

I told you my wife’s personal story. I have also told you that she is a public defender doing criminal appeals. Over several decades she has been directly involved in two cases on the exhonerated list.

In one instance she noted a newspaper story about a recently arrested serial rapist whose MO sounded remarkably like that of one of her past clients.

She called the same detective that investigated her own case 35 years ago, and he looked into it, and the serial rapist confessed and they were able to match DNA and her former client was released.

In that case within a few days of the assault the victim identified the wrong person.

The world is not perfect – get over it.

Get past pretending it is.
We do not get all the answers.
Everything is not knowable.

Oh, and I understand that Hillary tells us that – her husband’s accusers are different – all women must be beleiived – except them.

No race relations have not deteriorated.
The most that can be said for race relations in the US in the past decade, is that minorities, particularly blacks thought that the election of a Black President would fix all their problems.
Just as they have thought that black policemen, block police commissioners, black mayors would. Yet nothing change. Why ? Because if you expect your life to improve there is only one person that can bring that about – YOU.

Racism continues to exist in the US, and it will likely continue forever.
But it is for the most part relatively inconsequential.

No, we do not have to stop, kneeling, protesting, speaking out.

But a fundimental part of “protesting” is that it does not work unless the rest of the world sees your problem as a problem.

DD link to an NYT article about Trump as a cheating landlord.

No matter what your landlord is doing – if there are 10 others who would gladly rent your apartment for what you are paying under the same conditions are you have – then by definition you are not being cheated.

If football players wish to kneel during the national anything – that is their peragotive.
If fans choose not to attend or watch the games and teams can not afford players – that too is a peragotaive.

Freedom – means exactly that. It means you can do what you please short of actual harm to another. But the rest of us are free too. If you wish to leave your apartment because you think you are being cheated – leave. If 10 others are ready and willing to take your place – you were not being cheated.

“FREE, FREE.
You are free to not read this. ”
That is correct.
I am also free to read it and demonstrate the error of whatever you post.
Regardless, I have not tried to silence you, only point out your errors.

“Your remarks are pure BS,”
The evidence you have thus far presented is “I say so”
Not a valid argument.

“remarkably long and tedious.”
Possibly – many of the issues you over simplify or get wrong are in reality tedious and complex.

“But, then again, you are happy in your “do anything” bubble’.”

Still presuming that you are able to read the minds of others.

Still blatantly misrepresenting what others say.

I have not EVER said you are free to do anything you please.

I have provided a pretty clear guide for what you are free to do and what you are not free to do.

You have offered absolutely no basis for your decisions regarding what others are not free to do – yet, you are sure you are permitted to impose your choiices on others by force.

My kids are both Asian. I get funny stares and questions all the time. Sometimes from people who are minorities. Of course sometimes, the opposite is true – and people are friendlier to me because of my kids.

The world is that way.

It is reasonable for someone to be suspicious of an adult with kids who are different from them. She asked questions. He refused her questions – which he was free to do, but that legitimately raised her level of suspicion.

I was questioned by a police officer 15 years ago because I was out shoveling snow with my 6 year old son, and he threw a tantrum and threw himself on the ground. I grabbed his hand, hauled him back to the house and swatted him on the bum through three layers of clothes including a snow suit. A neighbor called the cops, and I had to answer some questions.
The officer apologized saying he had children of his own – but the law required him to ask, and to check on the kid. He did, and all was good.

I did not get 400K twitter views, and spark a national debate.

I think the woman in this instance was overly paranoid. But that happens.
In the end there are a huge amount of judgment calls here.
Lewis was within his rights through this.
But sometimes asserting your rights, rather than letting someone ask questions is going to be viewed as suspicious.

I know you do not believe in common sense, but common sense should tell someone if two kids are walking calmly with an adult, gets in the car without tantrum and show no signs of ” abduction”, then they should mind their own business. Would he have been approached had he been white with these two kids? Think about that! Would be have been approached had the kids been black? Think about that! He was approached and questioned because there was no way a black male adult should be with two white kids, period! Is that how you and dduck believe should happen? Why not question every male with a kid, regardless of race?

The black response will be outrage, demonstrations, kneeling and other actions that do no good. The response should be grass roots education to eliminate responses where blacks should not be with white kids, not actions resulting in negative reactions like this.

I do not beleive that common sense is definable.
Further particularly where one is talking about a decision with broad impact, what most people call “common sense” weighs only the obvious seen first order effects and ignores the unseen 2nd and 3rd order effects which are often larger.

“Common sense” should NEVER be used as a basis for government decision making,

In the context of individual choices all its flaws are less consequential.
The amorphous definitiion is irrelevant – as you are making choices for yourself.
The 2nd and 3rd order impacts of individual choices are nearly always much smaller than the first order effects – while the opposite is nearly always true with regard to societal choices.
Atleast part of that is because in individual choices force is not involved.

I am not going to debate when you should and should not be “suspicious” – many of the queues can not be put into some set of rules.
Clearly the woman in this case misread things. At the same time though Lewis was within his rights, he was doing so in a way to increase suspicions.

Would he have been approached if he was white ? It is less likely.
At the same time I am white, my kids are not, and II have had to deal with this.
So the answer is that race influences this, but it is NOT dispositive.

Overall our society is far more suspicious of younger black males.
Unfortunately that suspicion is justified.

I am not a big proponent of police.
I do not have a problem with “profiling”.
We know that certain types of crimes are nearly always committed by certain types of people.
We should not be prioritizing Grandma as a potential suicide bomber.

One of my problems with the police and profiling is that they litterally testify in court that NOT fitting the profile makes you suspicious – basically that not being suspicious is suspicious because you are deliberately trying not to be suspicious.

I am always dubious of people who are sure they know what others are thinking.

As to your black male with two white kids argument.

Well that is in the real world actually unusual. And we are always and rightly suspicious of the unusual.

I am not so concerned about people or the police being suspicious over “profiling”.

I am much more concerned about what should be to the greatest extent bright line rules for police conduct – for the use of force.

It appears in this instance the police behaved properly. Their intrusions into Mr. Lewis were poliite and limited.

I was not concerned about the police answering a call for a suspicious individual with two kids.

My issue is the fact that a black male has to be doing something wrong if there are two white kids with him.

And I can not believe I am debating the merits of this with two distinctly different people with two distinctly different political views. You (Extreme Libertarian) and dduck (very much left wing). Maybe Collin Kaeperneck is right about our racist nation when even the left wingers find this acceptable.

Why not question every male with kids – because that would require a police state.

The very thing you call “common sense” – which in some forms means, trying to reduce the scope of a problem, means you do not waste alot of effort looking for problems where they are not.

“Profiling” is merely focusing on the highest probabilities. All of us do that – including police.
It is NOT wrong even as a basis for suspicion. BUT it is NOT sufficient to justify the use of force.

I expect as an example that the police will follow the cars that have the greatest odds of being drug mules. I would not permit them to pull them over and search them merely because they fit the drug mule profile.

The response may be black outrage.

And there would be a different response if this woman or the police ignored this and this kids ended up abducted and killed.

As I said before knowing when to be more or less suspicious is not trivially expressable as written rules.

We do not want formal rules for when we can be suspicious.
We do want formal rules for what that suspiicion justifies.

The police asked lewis questions – I beleive he was in his home with the kids at the time.
Had he refused to answer and refused to allow the police to question the kids – the poliice would have been done.
They would have had slightly more latitude had they encountered him in public.

Regardless, THAT is where we want rules.
The rules are not about what can make our hair tingle, but on what we are permitted to do about that.

In a “perfect world” this should not have happened.
But in a perfect world there are no child abusers.

I think in general we have significantly erred in or heighten suspicions of everything having to do with children.

Absolutely it is more likely someone will be suspicious when an adult male is alone with children of other races. There is a SMALL increase in the likelyhood that something is wrong. It is even more likely when the male is black. That probably is not justified as I am not aware that black men are especially more prone to assorted forms of child abuse.

But again the world is not perfect.

It is difficult to tell the difference between reasonable concern and racism.
And in fact both can exist concurrently.

The police seem to have handled this well.
Mr. Lewis seems to have dealth with the police well.

He is angry – that is not unreasonable.
But this is not a burn the place down incident.

I am not opposed to “grass roots education efforts” – or anything else people do on their own or in voluntary groups.
I am not opposed – even when I think what they are seeking to accomplish is stupid or wrong – so long as they do not seek to use force aka government.

Trumps support from minorities – though abysmal, is still better than prior republicans, and growing.

Many minorities are starting to grasp that much of this disparate justice, racism, is occurring in black cities with black mayors, and black city counsels with black police cheifs and black officers, all democratic.

So the woman was wary and yes, suspicious at seeing an unusual scenario. So what?
The cops were courteous and the situation was resolved. I don’t know if the woman apologized, that would have been nice, but better to be cautious than sorry.
Next time you see what appears to be an abandoned backpack at an airport, by all means remember “if you see something, say something”.

Other than that, I agree, we need to have better relations with those of other ethnicities AND women.

“Fortunately no one was shot. That often happens when the police are called – even on innocent people.”
What OFTEN happens is you spout BS.
You have statistics ()I know, they lie) of how many times police are called and how many wind up with shots fired at the callers?
Oh, and please, include the ones where the police wind up being the one shot at.

There are approximately 100 instances a year in which police are shot in the line of duty.

Policing is a dangerous job. But it is still a job – a choice, not a right.
You do not get to put others into heightened danger to reduce your own danger.
If you can not live with that – do not take a job as a police officer.

I have a significant number of friends in law enforcement. And know even more people.
Many are good people, a few are complete assholes.

With few exceptions you can presume those in Swat teams are the latter.
The last thing you want n a police offiiicer is comone who enthusiastically beleives their job is going to war with the bad guys.

Most police badges are inscribed – “protect and serve”
That is the job.

“With few exceptions you can presume those in Swat teams are the latter.
The last thing you want n a police officer is someone who enthusiastically believes their job is going to war with the bad guys.”

Well I wonder how many would survive a standoff with a criminal with multiple guns armed with just a pistol and a protect and serve badge.

“Well I wonder how many would survive a standoff with a criminal with multiple guns armed with just a pistol and a protect and serve badge.”

Outside the movies this almost never happens.

The real world is not “miami vice”.

The most common instance in which we se weapons like AR-15’s being used – is school shootings. That is because we have made such an issue of them.
These guys want to be remembered and using a weapon that scares us helps assure that.

In my entire life I recall a single incident in my county in which a criminal had a weapon like an AR-15.

The overwhelming majority of criminals have cheap and usually stolen weapons that are not particularly reliable.

What should be amazing is that with about 300M guns in the US, with millions in a gun culture with very capable weapons that it is so rare that these are ever used in crimes.

A Glock 19 is about a $750 handgun.
Most criminals would not pay that much for a weapon.

I would refer you to Balko’s book linked above.
He provides statiistics on the frequency with which police actually encounter a gun of any kind in a swat raid – it is rare.

Further the most common instance in which they find a gun AND there is an attempt to use it, is when they make a mistake and hit an armed person who is not a criminal at 3am.
That iis when the shooting actually happens.

Most real criminals do not even move towards a weapon in the presence of police.

Real criminals anticipate the possibility of confrontation with police.
They are not “surprised” at 3am in the same way ordinary people are.

Real criminals rarely go for a gun in a police raid. That is a death sentence, and they know it.
Those criminals who have guns have them either:
To protect against other criminals.
To threaten ordinary people with.

Most of the encounters with police that involve the actual use of guns, are not criminals like drug dealers or bank robbers.
They are some guy who tries to kill his family or a neighbor and gets confronted by the police.
These are generally not “criminals” in the organized sense.
And they are generally not part of the “gun culture”.

The former mayor of my city has about 10,000 guns of different kinds in his basement.
He also has about half a dozen working revolutionary and civil war cannon,
My community is famous for having about 2 dozen real canons for the 1812 overature on the 4th of july. The Boston Pop’s has been after out cannon squad for decades.

You may have even seen our canon in movies like “glory”.

These are the type of people the police are NOT going to be able to deal with.
But they are almost never actually violent.

Since e seem to wish to talk about potential justices “perjuring” themselves in confirmation hearings.

Kagan was solicitor General prior to nomination and was asked about her involvement in a number of specific cases headed to SCOTUS. In at least one instance she denied knowledge of the case – beyond possibly having seen a memo from the WH.
she was asked to recuse from that case – and did not. It has subsequently turned out that she did much more than read a memo, that as SG she had personally created the WH strategy for the case. Amazing things like emails often come from FOIA requests.

Ginsburg’s confirmation was substantially more distance, but there is circumstantial evidence that she was directly involved in a number of cases that she denied any knowledge of.

These are far more substantial allegations that differences of opinion over the extent of Kavanaugh’s alcohol consumption, or the precise meaning of slang terms 36 years ago.

What does it take to get those of you supporting the left to ap0ply ANY standards consistently.

If you want to impeach Kavanaugh. Be my guest. But start procedings against every other judge and justice that similar allegations can be made of.

No one – but particularly republicans want to look “soft” on sex offenders – though most people do not understand that SORNA’s life time sex offender registration applies to people who are convicted of public urination in some states or worse, cover underage teens who text suggestive pictures of themselves.

Complicating this are the arguments.

Both the ACLU and many conservative groups are arguing to strike SORNA down on “non-delegation” grounds – that congress could not delgate its law making powers to the executive.
That should be pretty clear from the constitution and separation of powers.
BUT no successfull non-delegation case has been made since 1935.

The obliteration of separation of powers was concurrent with the mass expansion of the commerce clause. and the start of the mass expansion of the federal government.

The left would like to see SORNA overturned – but not 0n non-delgation grounds.
The right would like to see SORNA upheld – but the non-delegation doctrine restored.

“FREE, FREE.
You are free to not read this. Your remarks are pure BS, remarkably long and tedious. But, then again, you are happy in your “do anything” bubble’.
LMAO.”

Hey everyone. If you don’t like what Dave posts, there is a delete routine on e-mail.
On yahoo mail it is in the center top of the screen.
On G-mail it is the 4th icon over on the top of the mail page.

Use that and you don’t have to read Daves comments if you don’t want to.

You are responsible for dealing with the shit from your dog, when you take your dog onto someone else’s property.

I would note that if deer shit on your lawn – that is your problem.

I would further note that the evidence is that cleaning up dog shit is environmentally unsound.
It is done purely for human aesthetic reasons.

In the case of TNM you have consented to be exposed to the messages that are there whatever they may be, when you visit with your web browser or even more affirmatively ask TNM to send you any replies.

You were not obligated to do either.
You are free to filter.

You are claiming that either Rick has a duty to provide you with only those comments you want – Rick has no such duty.

Or that you can impose a duty not to speak on me. Again false.
Regardless, it is stil lyou looking to impose force on someone else because of your prefence.

You are narcissistic, again that should not surprise as progressivism is inherently narcissistic.

“You are narcissistic, again that should not surprise as progressivism is inherently narcissistic.”
As usual, you are wrong. Not about the narcissistic element you seem to perceive. I don’t care what you think, it is of little consequence; you spread your manure over so wide an area, that it is of little note.

What you are wrong about, for the record again, I am not a progressive. They, as most of the right and ultra libertarians like you, stink on ice.

So try again to pigeon hole me and the other more moderate folks on this bloated blog. You can’t because you like all extremists are befuddled by your inbred tribal minds.

However I define progressive, you are going to claim that definition is wrong.

How do you define it ?

If you want a definition from me, that would be the beleif that you can make the world a better place through the use of force against those who are not using force, not harming others, and keeping their commitments”.

I am not sure that early 20th century progressives would use the same words – but they would use the same meaning. The betterment of society through government – the improvement of the human condition through science, technology and economics advanced by government.

I would note that is indistinguishable from socialism.

Modern progressives might not run from either defintion, but mostly their ideology rests on philosophical garbage – the beleif – because it is nothing more that pretty much everything is a “social construction”, this is ultimately a nihilist system – and it is self contradictory.

If you look up social construction – hopefully you will find it pretty repugnant.
There is no means of separating right from wrong. No social construciton can be superior to another – though progressives will tell you otherwise.

When you play this game that something is just an oppinion and imply that all oppinions are equally – you are buying into social constructionist and progressive claptrap.

“So try again to pigeon hole me”
I take you at your word.
Are you saying you do not mean what you say ?

“and the other more moderate folks on this bloated blog.”
If you do not like the blog you are free to leave.

“You can’t because you like all extremists are befuddled by your inbred tribal minds.”

I offer facts – none of which you have made any effort to rebut – and I am beffuddled ?

You offer naked assertions – things people – mostly on the left beleive without the slightest thought or evidence. But you offer no proof, no evidence, not even argument.
Nothing but appeals to bad authorities, and “because I say so”.

According to nat geo’s DNA analisys, I am significantly Irish, with some scandanavian, and some german, and a bit of askanazi jew – the rumours about my great grandmother are probably true. But we did not find any black, so the rumours about Miscegenation in the welsh mountains are probably not.

Regardless I am not inbred. All you are offering is ad hominem – still not argument.

And I am oh so tribal. Have you ever been to a gathering of libertarians ? Pretty much the oposite of a tribe.

“You insufferable boor, how dare you tell me “I am free to leave”.
Who the f—- do you think you are, some self-appointed gate keeper.”

Who am I ? someone who respects the actual freedom of others.

Read your own stupid response. Talk about F’d up meaning.

The only thing I have ever “threatened” you with is choice – the free choices you actually have. Not those you wish you had.

This is the same stupid logic you are using regarding “cheating landlords”.

Anyone who does not have the choices they want, must be being “forced” into something.

In this particular instance I have nor have claimed to have any power over your choices. I have merely noted what they are.

You constantly bitch and moan, I have taken you at your word that you are not happy wiith how things are, and informed you of what you have to be an idiot not to know – that you are not obligated to suffer. That you have free choices.

That they are not the ones you want is your problem, and not one of my making.

You see force where is is not, and do not see it where it is.
As I said you are progressive.

“If you want a definition from me, that would be the belief that you can make the world a better place through the use of force against those who are not using force, not harming others, and keeping their commitments”.
Not even close.
Now give me short, non-rambling definition, if you can. And, please don’t whine that I am “forcing” you.

I am happy with the defintion I provided.
If you do not think that is the defintion of “progressive” – fine.
It still fits you – obviously.

You claim I am using force against you by telling you that you have choices.
Then you demand I define progressive for you.
Then you reject that definition and demand another.
All while not committing yourself to anything.

Atlantic article about a very interesting survey or the political views of americans.

I do not presume that because the majority responds some way on a poll that means that is what we should do.

Regardless, this study strongly suggests that Trump won despite the fact that people do not like him, because we do not like what he is fighting against even more.

I also found it interesting that the smallest political group – progressives, was the most homogenous – almost exclusively affluent and whites with advanced college degrees.

My read is that minorities are being exploited – increasingly unsuccessfully by highly educated elite whites.

The 2nd finding – that overwhelming majorities of americans oppose “hate speach”. also shows why we have the near civil war that we have right now.
Those on the right are using our disliike of political correctness to divide voters and people from the left. Those on the left are using “hate speach” to divide voters from the right.

Pushing opposition to political correctness is relatively tame. But trying to use hate speach as a wedge requites at least verbal violence. It requires calling people racist, misogynist – haters. This is a dangerous strategy which can not be sustained.

There was an interesting interview this morning locally with a lady who has two sons in school. She has been a like long democrat from a family of generations of democrats, but after the judge K fiasco, she said she was now going to vote GOP. She said she believes something happened to Ford, but she also believes it was someone other than K and the way the dems tried railroading him showed her the democrats will believe a woman any time she says sexual abuse. She said she does not want her sons raised in a country where a man is guilty before being proven guilty.

Most all media regurgitates the story that women will vote overwhelmingly for democrats because of the K outcome. I would like to see polling of women for the following demographics….married/single….age….children/no children…….son(s)/daughter(s)/Both son(s) daughter(s)

I suspect the results would be different than what the media is spreading.

I though the study on Political correctness and hate speach was interesting.

Here we have two values that are nearly but not quite diametrically opposite, and yet the polling is showing people with logically irreconcilable positions – 80+% opposeing PC and 80% opposing hate speach.

The contradiction is not resolveable, but it diminishes significantly if we weight each of these,
if we look at how strongly people reject political correctness and how strongly they reject hate speach and what they think political correctness and hate speach are.

My point is that polls provide information, but they do not really tell us what decisions people will make – because each point that is polled also has a weight a value.

People do not like Trump, They do not like Clinton – Trump won the election.
Their disapproval of Trump as a single data point was not sufficient to predict the election.

I do nto know what is going to happen in November. I do not think that anyone does.
I think we have seen enough error in polling for 2016 and brexit that there are things the polls are not accurately reading.

It appears near certain that the GOP will hold the senate, they have 49 seats that are locked.
They need to win only 1 seat of those that are not.
It is likely they will gain a very small number of seats – there are too many democratic seats up, and too many of them are in heavily read states.

Trump has republicans making gains amount minorities.
Not huge gains, but still gains.

The democratic claim that republicans must get overwhelming support from whites to win has an obverse – democrats must get overwhelming support from minorities to win.

Small inroads by republicans into minorities are life threatening to democrats.
That is why the vitriole about Candiice Owen’s and Kayne West.

Don’t Walk, Run productions – a pretty conservative YouTuber, that somone on twitter linked to has a bunch of videos “debunking” assorted democrating positions.
He is pretty heavily tilted and some of his “facts” are wrong or do not mean what he claims, and sometimes he makes the same errors he critiicises,

But he has come up with myriads of interesting points.

The “father” who was cruelly deported to mexico, ultimately would have been deported by Obama (and many similar were), further he could have solved his problem anytime from 2006 through 2014. He was married to a US citizen, all he had to to was voluntarily leave for a month, and apply for permanent residency as the spouse of a US citizen and he would have proforma been granted permanent residence status. He completely ignored everything for almost a decade – the Obama administration practically pleaded to get him to leave and apply, but he refused. Once the court finally ordered him deported in 2014 he was pretty much screwed. He will likely now be denied permanent residence because he was convicted of staying here illegally.

Another point he made is that we have seen 2 years of new stories and video about neo nazi’s and the KKK and their violence.
There are 3 times as many members of MS-13 in the US right now, and they are responsible for orders of magnitude more violence than the KKK and alt-right, but we get few stories – because violent illegal aliens do not fit well with the narrative the left press wishes to sell.

The left’s appeal to people is that facts do not matter, it is feelings that matter.

The net political effect is still to be determined.
But:
Democratic approval has peaked and is slowly declining.
The democratic edge in the generic ballot is declining.

RCP is still projecting a wash in the senate – because they average polls over a long period, but in most Senate polls repubicans have gained, democrats have lost and in several close races results have flipped. Something siimilar is happening in governors races were democrats should have had large gains, but it looks like those gains will be small.

Significant majorities of people beleive Ford – and Kavanaugh. Further they are very unhappy, and the blame has been placed almost entirely on democrats.

“On Thursday, Facebook said it had identified 559 pages and 251 accounts run by Americans, many of which amplified false and misleading content in a coordinated fashion. The company said it would remove the pages and accounts. Among them were Right Wing News, which had more than 3.1 million followers, and left-wing pages that included the Resistance and Reverb Press, which had 240,000 and 816,000 followers.”

“Right Wing News also used Facebook ads to spread its content through other Facebook pages. In June, the Daily Vine, an American-run Facebook page linked to Right Wing News, published a Facebook ad for a false story that claimed that 412 Muslim men in Michigan had been arrested in the “largest bust in U.S. history.” (The Department of Justice investigation that the story was based on revealed a network of 412 people involved in opioid-related crimes, but they were neither exclusively Muslim nor based in Michigan.)
Facebook said the ad was paid for by Right Wing News and was allowed according to its rules, which let American citizens and residents place political ads. Though Facebook has since taken down The Daily Vine page, and the ad is no longer running, it was viewed as many as 50,000 times between June 19 and June 20, according to Facebook’s metrics. The Daily Vine could not be reached for comment.
Ms. Martinez said Facebook taking action against Right Wing News and other domestic disinformation networks would stem some of the flow of false content — but only for a little while.
“There is little to stop them from spawning off as a new page, or account, and just starting to build their network again,” she said. “They can just keep trying to get around Facebook’s rules.”
Lefties get in the act also: “The Resistance is a left wing page that Facebook said it would remove.”

Are you desparate to PROVE that the left owns social media executives ?

Why do you beleive this garbage ?

“Facebook said it had identified 559 pages and 251 accounts run by Americans, many of which amplified false and misleading content in a coordinated fashion. The company said it would remove the pages and accounts. ”

So Zuckerberg is now litterally the truth police ?

Are these accounts spreading false and misleading content ?

Near certaily. So has the NYT and WaPo. Are we going to “remove them” ?

Do you understand how free speech works ?

Free spee requires us to allow people to speak, even to LIE.

It is not just about the right of people with offensive views to say what they want.
It is about the right of all of us to have available to us all viewpoints.

We do not have to listen, but no one has deprived us of the ability to listen to any viewpoint that we chose.

You are offended by being called a “progressive” – and yet you argue this total progressive bullshiit ?

The point of Free speech is that each of us as individuals gets to deciide on our own what we wish to beleive is true or false – that neither Mark Zuckerburg nor the government get ro decide what iis true for us.

The fact that you can look positively on this means you have not grasped the significance of pretty much every dysoptian novel ever written.

What is hllarious is that you do this at the same moment that the story breaks that some academics have just reveiled the entire area of grievance studies as a ludicrously stupid sham.

You want to censor some face book accounts that you do not like.
But it iOK for the majority of prestigious social science journals to publish deliberately made up nonsense – because they can not ditunguish it from everything they publiish all the time ?

If you want to play this game – go find ANY clip of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
This is a woman with a college degree in economics who can not do simple math.
It there someone here who thinks that 40% of 330M is over 200M ?
Or that 58M – mostly part time employees and college students is the same as 200M ?
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stated that over 200M people in the US – 40% of the population earn under 20K/year. That is just one example. Every time she opens her mouth what comes out is trivially wrong.

Should we censor her ? If we are going after the Daily Vine or RWN – shouldn’t we go after similar total garbage from an extremely high profile political candidate ?

I never heard of “the Daily Vine” before, and barely heard of RWN. What do they have 3 people in the country who might have been deceived by them ? Pretty mich every has heard of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez amd has heard something totally completely ludiicrously stupid that she has said – and an enormous portion of people have even bought it.

IF Free speach is so dangerous it must be censored – we should start with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez not some organizations no one has heard of.

Facebook is a private actor and as such is supposed to be free to censor their forum as they please. This is actually false because the DMCA actually requires them to be content neutral and if they are not, they are no longer subject to the DMCA safe harbor provisions.

Put simply Facebook can not be sued for defamation or subject to legal penalties for their content so long as they excercise no editorial control of that content. The moment they do start to pick and choose what they will allow, they are then responsible for what they allow.

I disagree with the DMCA – it is wrong, it should have been found unconstitutional.

But ignoring that – all Facebook engaging in censorship is going to do is prove the conservative claim that facebook and other social media companies are politically biased.

And Oh, using left wing nut logic, the efforts of FB to purge right leaning politcal content would be an illegal campaign contribution.

So Facebook purges the groups that are functioning as watchdogs on law enforcement – and this is your idea of something good ?

Censorship NEVER ends well.

As part of its purge, Facebook has removed the pages of several police accountability/watchdog/critic groups, including Cop Block, the Free Thought Project, and Police the Police. They've also apparently severely restricted activity for the Photography Is Not a Crime page.

Last year’s tax reform legislation disproportionately benefits the wealthiest Americans, including President Trump. However, Trump’s ongoing refusal to disclose his tax returns ensures that Americans cannot know the full extent to which the new tax legislation directly benefits Trump. For example, a newly discovered loophole shows Trump could benefit even more than previously known–one that could make some of his foreign income functionally tax-free. The President’s lack of transparency raises questions about his motives for supporting the bill and is yet another reason why presidential candidates and presidents typically disclose their tax returns to the American public.
One of the giveaways to millionaires and billionaires in the Trump tax bill allows shareholders in Subchapter S corporations, also known as “pass-throughs” (because the income passes through the corporation to the shareholder’s income tax return, instead of being taxed separately at the corporate level) to only pay tax on 80% of that income. Not only is this a giveaway to the wealthiest among us, but it will also likely benefit President Trump enormously, as the many entities that fall under the umbrella of The Trump Organization are likely pass-through corporations.
But, another lucrative loophole, one designed precisely for businesses that are organized as pass-throughs and make money abroad, has largely escaped notice. President Trump has numerous foreign-based entities, such as DJ Aerospace Limited incorporated in Bermuda, Turnberry Scotland LLC incorporated in Turnberry, Scotland, TIGL Ireland Enterprises Limited incorporated in Doonbeg, Ireland, and THC Barra Hotelaria TLDA incorporated in Brazil, are likely pass-throughs, which means that this loophole will almost certainly directly benefit him. This new loophole allows shareholders of pass-through entities to pay zero tax indefinitely on their foreign income. This is even more generous than the terms afforded to Subchapter C Corporations, the corporate form commonly used by publicly traded companies, whose income is taxed at the corporate level. Under the new tax bill, C Corporations receive a not-too-stingy eight years to spread out the tax liability for foreign income. Rather than spreading out payment of income tax over eight years, Shareholders of S Corporations pay not a penny in tax on unlimited amounts of foreign income until an indefinite point in the future when the S Corporation dissolves, the S Corporation liquidates substantially all of its assets, or until the shareholder decides to transfer the shares or dies. See 26 U.S.C. 965(i)(1)-(2).
*********Even the death of the shareholder, however, may not trigger payment of tax. The law allows heirs of Subchapter S corporations stockholders to step into the shoes of the taxpayer and continue to defer the tax indefinitely. See 26 U.S.C. 965(i)(2)(C). Furthermore, it is not clear whether the IRS can even assess the tax to the shareholder until the S Corporation dissolves, liquidates its assets, or the shares are transferred.”******

Trump is 72. According to Forbes he is worth 3.1B. If he lived another 20 years.
and earned nothing more, no interest, no other income, he would have to spend 295,000 per second to spend all of his money before he died.

250 years ago Adam Smith came to the realiization that most of the rich have more money than they could possibly spend by far. That their efforts do nothing more than benefit others, no matter what they might want.

Gates, Bezo’s, Buffet, Trump – all of the super rich have their wealth invested – where iit produces jobs, goods and services for the rest of us.

You keep claiming you are not a progressive – yet pretty much every argument you make is progressive.

I do not give a damn about Trump’s money. I am not so stupid that I beleive that whatever he has somehow comes at my expense. I am smart enough to grasp that the opposite is true.

Money exists for one of two reasons – because we have produced more actual wealth – in which case you should be looking at who has that wealth, they are the ones who benefited,
Or from inflation, which is just government making your money worthless.

The only real value to money is its ability to be exchanged for wealth.

If you do not want “loopholes”, that is easily accomplished – impose a flat tax. Everyone pays the same rate, no loopholes, no deductions, no exceptions, no government subsidies.

Are you actually so stupid as to think that Trump wrote the tax bill ?

Have you heard of this thing we have in the US called “congress” ?

You bemoan Trump’s “lack of Transparency” – certainly our government should be more transparent. But the “loopholes” you cite are the consequence of legislation passed by congress that was debated publicly by congressional committes for months, that was published for more than a week, that was publicly voted on.

What is your idea of Transparency ?

Subchapter S corporations have existed for more than a century.
They have never been taxed.
In fact no form of business except a subchapter C corp has every paid taxes.
Small businesses are not taxed, S corps are not taxed, llc’s are not taxed, llp’s are not taxed.
Partnerships are not taxed, sole proprieterships are not taxed.

But the profits of each of these are ALL taxable income to whoever owns those businesses.
That is not new.

That too is actually a serious mistake. The profits of businesses should NEVER be taxed – until they are actually transfered to people.

The recent tax reform also PARTLY fixes some of the stupidest aspects of US tax law – the foreign business idiocy you reference.

The jurisdiction of the US – including the IRS is the teritory of the US.
We are not the government of the world.

If you sell croissants in France – any profits you make are taxable by the French.

Of all the countries in the world ONLY the US is so stupid as to tax foreign income.
That iis income some other country has already taxed.

Why would we do such a stupid thing ? If Apple has made 80B dollars selling iPhones elsewhere in the world – shouldn’t the US want to encourage Apple to bring that money back to the US where it can create new jobs and investment ?

Or should we have high taxes on foreign income – which we can not tax until that money returns to the US – because we have zero sovereigniity in foreign countries ?

Or worse should we encouage US businesses to move out of the US so that they are not subject to US taxes at all ?

ALL are economically destructive. Therefore to reach the highest standard of living the spending and therefore taxes of government should be as low as possible.

No matter how you tax, no matter who you tax we are all poorer when those taxes reduce standard of living rather than increase it – the greatest benefit to all occurs with government spending greater than 0 but less than 20% of all production.

Again all taxes reduce standard of living.

However you tax – there should be only one form of tax.
If you separately tax income and sales, you create double taxation – that means you create artiificial incentives to act on specific ways solely because of taxes.
That inherently reduces standard of living.

All taxes are not equal.
The most economically harmful taxes are taxes on capital. That is ALL business taxes of any kind and that is all upper margin taxes on wealthy people

This is NOT about “fair shares” or what you wish. It is about how taxes work.

Taxes on Capiital harm EVERYONE, and they harm those NOT RICH more than they harm the rich.

The least economically harmful form of taxation is consumptions taxes – sales taxes.
That does nto make them good – all taxes are bad. Sales taxes are the most regressive form of taxes – they burden the poor more than anyone else.
But depite that the budren the economy the least and therefore standard of living rises the fastest for ALL.

If I were god. If I had written the laws of economics and human behavior. I might have done so differently.
But this IS how things actually work. Ranting that “it is not fair” is stupid. Fair or not we are all better off with the tax arrangements that the left likes the least, that appear to be the most “unfair”

Kaitlin Bennet – the female reporter in this story is a Conservative 2nd amendment advocate she was interviewing protestors at a Trump Rally.

Last night at the Trump rally in PA, a liberal protester touched me against my consent and said he'd throw me on the ground and rape me. Feminists around him, who say we're supposed to believe women, defended him and denied it happened. This is what the left has come to. #MeToopic.twitter.com/E6R9c0LA9J

Who cares? It’s not yet clear. But if any substantial fraction of Swift’s 112 million Instagram followers does care — yes, I said 112 million — and acts on her advice, we could see a real impact on Nov. 6. Swift’s audience is young; I don’t have any data, but I wouldn’t be surprised if their average age were roughly “22.”

You have lost the thread so I do not know what this is in response to.

Whoever Swift is 112M people is 1/3 of the US, it is nearly ever voter in 2016, it is more people than exist in the country under 30 and this is for someone I have not heard of on a platform that is 2nd tier.

There are not that many Trump haters in the entire country.

“I do not have any data” – what is new – you never do, about anything.

The “fun” president: “The President says a lot of things,” Kudlow told reporters on the drive outside the White House, where Trump’s advisers are often found in the mornings, cleaning up this or that remark from the President. “He has a lot of fun.”
And here, we have the “funny” commenter/poster.

Near everyone in the planet aggrees that Trump’s tweets should be more reserved.

Of course I can make a long list of people I used to respect from the left that the exact same could be said of.

Trump was wrong when during the campaign he suggested at a rally that he might pay the legal fees of any supporters who got into fights with hecklers.

Too my knowledge that is the closest to “inciting to violence” Trump has gotten.

Any violence or actual conflict at Trump ralliies is from heckler’s.

That is generally true of those on the right – even the ones I do not like.

The alt-right groups at Charlottesviille stayed within police lines. The counter protestors crossed them to engage in violence.

There was no actual violence from the right during Tea Party Ralliies – they actually cleaned the DC mall as they left OWS was belligerent and violent even among themselves and left excrement and dirty needles. The cleanup around the ICE building that is the epicenter of the anarchy in portland iis going to be expensive.
When is the last time a republican shot a bunch of democratic congressmen ?

Find me a Republican Senator calling a judge evil ?
Find anything from a republican equivalent to the speeches, tweets, on the record remarks of leading democrats.

Maxine Waters, Cory Booker and now Hillary Clinton are not Fred Phleps – and I do not recall even him calling for actual violence – he expected God to do that for him.

When EVER have republicans harassed democrats at restaurants ?
At their homes ? In the middle of the night ?

When has a republican leader called for doing that ?

When has any republican protest group burst through police barriers ?

This is what happens when you have no moral foundation.
When your concept of right and wrong rests in feelings, not reason.

There is alot wrong with the right – but the only people listening on to those on the left are those on the left.

The media spent yesterday frothing about Kayne West. I heard black talking heads saying dozens of things about a black man on national TV that any republican would have been “lynched” for doing – yet the media did not even notice their own hypocrisy.
It is a crime for a black man to like Trump and speak out.

I do not personally put stock in celebrty political oppinions. I expect no more political cohenerce from Kayne than I do from Meryl Streep – I do not like his music and I love her films. Neither makes much sense talking politics – but they are free to do so.
The media only finds it necescary to defame one of them.

You are not going to make progress bemoaning Trump’s uncouth speach so long as the much of the media is not merely biased but a fully owned wing of the DNC.

The other big debate was whether people who broke through multiple police lines, ripped up the signs of protestors who disagreed with them, chased senators and representatives into their offices and stalked them in the corridors of the capital, chased people into restaurants, were merely protesting or whether they were an “angry mob”

We have seen these things before – the Nazi’s staged riots. As did the Bolsheviks

That is the best you can do ? A local republican candidate ?
Did you actually watch the video ? Wagner was perfectly clear he was speaking metaphorically – listen to the whole video. It is quite clearly NOT an explicit threat, nor a call to violence. Still the language was wrong and he should not have used it.

Regardless, this IS where things are going and once again it is democrats dragging us there.
Wagner is republican and wrong – but republicans will ultimately echo democrats.
Violence begets violence.

“If Our Opponents Bring Knife to a Fight, ‘We Bring a Gun'”
That would be the democrtic president EXPLIICTLY threatening those who cross him – atleast using your meaning of “explicit, more importantly iit was a call to violence.
Wagner called others to VOTE, Obama was calling others to bring a gun.

TEN YEARS AGO.

How many times TEN YEARS AGO was Sarah Palin “burned in effigy”, or “Lynched” ?

Certainly you can find stupid things said by both parties – I am sure you can find some republican city counselman who has said something stupid.

But we are talking a democratic president, senators, congressmen, Attorney General’s, DNC chairs,

About the only sane Democrat at the moment seems to be Michelle Obama.

I do not care that much about the rhetorical violence. I think that the language of Holder, Obama, Booker, Waters and Wagner is self punishing.

That does not mean I will not call attention to those making fools of themselves, nor note that it is and has for a long long time been democrats.

Have prominent republican comics choreographed beheading a democratic president ? Or called him a “cock holster for putin” ? Have prominent republicans in the entertainment industries publicly mused about assassinating a democratic president ?

The left and the media do not even blink at that.

You do not even understand that it is immoral.

What I am concerned about is that more actual violence is coming.
Democrats are desperate and are going to continue to escalate.

I am not looking to defend Wagner. He is an idiot who is going to manage to lose badly to a highly unpopular democratic governor in a state Trump won.

Regardless, Wagner was engaged in nothing different from Boxers preparing for a match – or are you going to condemn Ali ?

This is also little different from Trumps attack’s on the press.

I do not care if Sienma says she is going to wipe the floor with McSally
I might prefer different language.

But Wagner did NOT tall republicans to actually go out and stomp on Wolf’s face.

Trump did NOT actually tell people at Trump rallies to beat up hecklers.
He did however say that he longed for the old days when someone who came in and stated hitting others left on a stretcher.

The remarks of democrats are in myriads of ways different.

I personally beleive that free speach should be absolute – that even incitement to violence should not be a crime.
That does NOT however mean I think it is moral.

If you label someone else as evil – you had better be able to demonstrate that is true.
If you facilitate actual violence against others who are not themselves engaged in actual violence – you are morally repugnant.

Recently the addresses and cell phones of several republican senators were “leaked” and published resulting in increased threats and actual violence.

No democrats has condemned that.
There has been some investigation – and it is clear this information was posted by democratic staffers in the house of representatives.
I beleive that Since Trump’s election – more democratic operatives have been arrested and prosecuted for things like leaking classified information than anything Mueller has managed.

Glenn Simpson is taking the 5th and refusing to testify.
Rosenstein refuses to tell congress the same things he Told Trump about his involvement in wiretapping the president, despite the fact that Trump has said he should do so, that even saying so publicly not under oath would be fine.

“Any violence or actual conflict at Trump ralliies is from heckler’s.”

What about Dickhead Donald’s suggestive call to violence against a single heckler:

“You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out in a stretcher, folks,” he said after a protester interrupted a Las Vegas rally in February 2016. “I’d like to punch him in the face, I tell ya.”

Dave, no one will ever be able to debate with the left the merits of K’s confirmation because they know deep down Feinstein was the bad guy in this issue. They have to make K the bad guy because they need a bad guy and he is their chosen target. Its all about the election.

So if Feinstein (SF) had taken Ford’s (F) letter to Grassley (G) and given this info to the rest of the committee, then all could have received FBI report. SF would have received info if F’s claim had merit ir not. G could have shared info with Trump. All could have had private meetings with K. If anything showed he did this, then his nomination could have been pulled. Had it not shown anything other than unsubstantiated claims, then it would not have been part of the official committee hearings.

But that is not good politics. In an era where a man is guilty if the woman says he is guilty without corroborating evidence or witness, good politics demands underhanded actions to make someone the person to lynch so it becomes an election year issue.

Now the argument will be that she was asked not to share the letter. The left claims this and S claims she did not leak it to the press, so she shared it with someone. And if she did. then she violated F’s request. If she did not, then she leaked it with or without F’s permission.

I coached my daughters soccer teams until they started playing for their high school and stopped playing club soccer. I have said a number of times in the past couple years there would be no way in hell that I, an adult male, would ever coach females in this era of ” he did it he is guilty” mental environment. The risk far exceed the rewards today that did not exist just a few years ago (90”s).

“When has any republican protest group burst through police barriers ?”

Five pro-life supporters were found guilty In January of trespassing and interfering with police at an abortion clinic in West Bloomfield.

And this: “NEW YORK (AP) — America’s abortion clinics experienced a major upsurge in trespassing, obstruction and blockades by anti-abortion activists in 2017, according to an annual survey by an industry group.

The National Abortion Federation report chronicled a litany of actions that ranged from coordinated trespassing efforts by abortion opponents, repeated brick-throwing at windows of a Cleveland clinic and an attempted bombing in Illinois.”

“Five pro-life supporters were found guilty In January of trespassing and interfering with police at an abortion clinic in West Bloomfield.”

I know they are increasingly rare – as democrats have chased them out of the party – but pro-life does NOT mean republcan.

Pro-lifers are more likely to be catholic than anything else, and again until recently catholics were overwhelmingly democrats.

As to your annual survey – NYC also reported a huge surge in hate crime reports iin 2017.
Interestingly – the number of successful hate crime prosecutions had a very small increase – why ? Because there was a huge increase in false reports.

We have seen this throughout the country since Trump was elected.
There has NOT been some massive increase in riight wingbuts doing rascist hateful things.
There has been a massive increase in left wing nuts trying to make it appear as if right wiing nuts are doing racist hateful things.

There is an answer to the question whether human life begins at conception.
I do not know that answer.
You do not know that answer.

Just like what are the origins of the universe – we can only speculate.
But that does not alter the fact that there is an actual answer.

One side of the abortion debate (or possibly both) is with near certainty WRONG.
We may not know which, but that is still true no matter what.

Though I do find your jump to abortion quite interesting.

The virulence with with the left is responding to Trump is pretty much EXACTLY how pro-life groups respond to abortion.

Some at the extremes – such as Eric Rudolph are willing to kill – violating their own purported principles. A slightly larger group are willing to picket – even get arrested – to trespass, to cross police lines.

Though I would note that few of these are doxxing pregnant women, following them to their homes and protesting.

Or do you not recognize a difference between picketing a business you do not like – such as PP and pro-lifers, and doxing people and pickettiing their homes ?

I would further note that pro-life groups – particularly catholic pro-life groups, and particularly those protesting at your abortion clinics – are also protesting at executions.
That makes them pretty far from the republican mainstream.

I believe the last time nuns and other pro life groups protested in front of the supreme court – they were physically attacked by pro-choice groups.

Regardless, you are talking about a relatively stable conflict that has existed in US politics for decades that iis not particularly changing. Even Kavanaugh is unlikely to significiantly change abortion in America.

There is no fundimental difference between Fields, and most of the school shooters – except possibly one thing. It is hiighly unlikely that Holmes planned anything.

He was a mentally unhealthy person attracted to fringe groups who found himself being teargassed and pissed on and having rocks thrown at him and like paranoids tend to do he whigged out.

As has been demonstrated here repeatedly – he did not actually kill anyone. Heyer was not struck by his car – though others were.
At worst he scared her to death – just as those in antifa scared the crap out of him.

I would note that but for Heyer’s death which raised emotion over fact, the story of Charlottesville would have been quite diifferent.

It would have been of left wing groups breaking through police barriers to mace, piss on, and throw rocks at people they hate.
It would have been about the state goverenor, and city government that ordered the police to stand down and leave the marchers unprotected.
It would have been about the state and local government that forced the markers to run an antifa gauntlet TWICE
All of that happened BEFORE fields whigged out.

So how many right wingers were throwiing stones, piss or mace at those who broke through the police lines at the supreme court or the capital ?

How many right wingers were physcially pummeling Hodgkins before he opened fiire on republicans ?

How many republiicans had physically assaulted Madona or Johnny Depp before they publicly fanatsiized about assassination ? Do you think that if anyone had made the same remarks about Obama they would not be in jail ?

How many republicans maced Sen. Booker or Waters or Holder before their remarkers ?

We have a long hiistory of leftist political violence in the US dating back to the SLA, the Weatherunderground, The SDS,

That would be ignoring the leftist violence throughout the world in the 20th century

All predating what is going on today.

You used pro-life protestors at an abortion clinic – who were primarily engaged in civil disobedience not violence.

Did McConnell suggest they engage in violence ? Ryan ?

The fish rots from the head, whatever the stench emanating from Trump – it does not compare to the the left.

RCP now has Republicans clearly holding the Senate with 50 seats counting every race where republicans are ahead by 8pts or more.
And is currently predicting a GOP pickup of 1 senate seat if there are no tossups.

Following reports from Turkey, which seem to be accurate, of the Torture and murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Turkey, Trump, signaling his stance on the matter, remarked he doubted the US would do much about it: The Saudi’s are spending billions of dollars on US military hardware, and the Trump Hotels in their country are really profitable – so why make waves.

All the members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, feel differently (but one: hint: a 5’8” faux libertarian) They have moved to hold Saudi Arabia accountable under the Global Magnitsky Act, which gives the president the legal authority to institute a travel ban and asset freeze on human rights violators in any country.

All those who believe Trump won’t squirm out of anything but a cosmetic scolding, raise your hands.

Jay what the hell are you talking about? Do you really want us getting involved with an issue between two countries that we have questionable relationships with? Can we afford to risked military bases in Turkey or SA? Should we support Turkey which has almost become a dictatorship or SA that supports other terroristic actions?

Are you really saying we should stick our nose into this? Haven’t we done enough of that crap already?

Too late? Coincidence or maneuvering between us and our so-called friends
Turkey- sleaze and Saudis- very rich murderers.
NYT: Mr. Brunson’s release coincided with the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and journalist who was a columnist for The Washington Post, inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Turkish officials say they have video and audio evidence that Mr. Khashoggi, a United States resident, was killed, and his case may have led Turkey to seek to repair relations with Washington to secure its help in confronting Saudi Arabia, analysts said.”

Mr. Khashoggi is a US resident – he is not a citizen. He is a darling of the left at the moment – because the left has not seen a radical muslim they do not fawn over.
That is not a justification for what PROBABLY happened to him.

But it is also not a justification for the US to get into this.
I hope Trump is smart enough to stay away from this mess.

IF something evil was done to him by the Saudi’s and that seems likely – that is pretty bad.
Even in the unlikely event the Saudi’s did nothing – SA is incredibly far from sainthood.

And our current relationship is wierd. The current regime is the most enlightened regime in SA in my lifetime – by a long shot. But that does nto make them good people.

Throughout the Mideast it is impossible to find any country that meets western standards of decency. Even Israel only looks good in comparison to those who surround it and would destroy it.

Then we have Kossoghi himself – while he is clearly at odds with Saudi Rulers, he is also an advocate for the muslim brotherhood.

Then we are getting much of our information from Erodegan in Turkey.
While it is likely what Turkey is providing is true, We are not talking about white nights here.

The Saudi’s are doing bad things to their own people – but less bad than they were in the past. They are also actively engaged in a civil war in Yemen that is horrifiic.
So is Iran.

Trump (probably Kushner) got Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel last march.
That is enormous and will have positive consequences in the mideast for decades to come.

So what exactly is it you suggest we do ?

I do not BTW have the answers. My advice would be for Trump to stick to his campaign promises – he has defeated ISIS, now we should get out of anything where we have no national interests – that means Afghanistan.

Further the US GOVERNMENT should get out of the arms business.
If US companies wish to sell weapons or anything else to countries that are not currently actiively our enemies – let them. They can also take the public political flack for doing so.

Do you want open borders or do you wish to have some limits to immigration ?

If you actually want open borders – then you are very libertarian – even most libertarians do not, certaintly republicans and democrats don’t.
Regardless, if that is what you want, then you are hoinf to have to be open to discussing how to deal with the consequences of that.
I doubt that you do – so there is ltte reason to discus that further with you.

Assuming you do not want unlimited immigration, then you need to discuss what the limits are.
No one on the left has any willingness to have that discussion. That is both hypocritical and immoral.

Presuming that you do not want limitless immigration, then you are going to have to accept that incentivizing immigration from those you do not intend to let in is just plain stupid.

Miller is saying that he wants to stop families with children from trying to cross our borders illegally. Frankly most of us probably think that dragging your children 1000 miles subjecting them to drug dealers MS-13, Coyotes and the trials of hostile nature is pretty irresponsible for an adult today.

If you were a US citizen and subjected your kids to that – you would lose them.

I would further note that though we should treat illegal immigrants humanely – if we are not just going to let them in, at the same time it is actually stupid and cruel to give them hope – if there is no hope, to prolong their departure if they are not going to be able to stay, to make being apprehended crossing the border attractive.

Whatever you incentivize – you will get more of.

I am not going to comment on specific immigration polices that have no details and may or may not occur.

But generally – if we are not going to allow these people into the country – we should get rid of them quickly and in as unpleasant a fashion as we can still do humanely. As it is inhumane to give them false hope or to incentivize their actions.

There is a small group that wants to reduce all immigration, a small group that want open borders and a large group that want immigration reform. I tried finding any info specific to those questions, but it is not present when I do search. Looking at other polls shows that buried in other questions.

What we get from Washington is NOTHING! What we need is immigration reform. It is my understanding that there are limits on total immigrants and per country immigrants. Those should be removed or drastically changed. If we need construction workers or computer nerds, then that should have more influence on immigration than random limits by country. Then if the reforms make entry easier for those we need, the law should also become stronger against those entering illegally.

But doing something takes away an election issue. There is no way Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Shumer will ever ALLOW their members to vote for immigration reform. They want that front and center, at least until 2020 election is over. And the Trump haters can keep attacking him on his immigration policies because it is good politics.

And that goes for any key issue, not just immigration if it is an issue that makes a difference in votes.

Mostly am not interested in the demographics of the politics of immigration – though there is an enormous portion of the country that would be happy to make any of the “deals” the republiicans have offered.

The one thing the Republicans have going for them is that most people really do want RULES. They do not want arbitrary chaos – which is really what the democrats offer.

My expectation is that right or left – if you have a position on immigration that you can rationally explain and defend it.

Not as some hodgepodge collection – but an actually cohesive position on immigration.

If you wish to ACTUALLY support open immigration – do so OPENLY, and then be prepared to defend it. Be prepared to explain how you are going to make the rest of our system work with what would likely be 100M new immigrants in less than a decade.
If you are not prepared to do that – then you are just thoughtlessly spouting some religious beleifs you picked up from your political cult.

My personal position is something very close to “open boarders” and I AM prepared to defend that. AND to make the other changes necescary.
At the same time – that is NOT going to happen politically. Nor is anything close to it.

I keep getting accused of being some kind of rigid ideologue – yet I am the one trying to work out an alternative to what I think it is the morally, and practically right approach – open borders, and to weigh the lessor options.

If you are not going for “open borders” – you have already accepted that immigration is going to require DISCRIMINATION.
If we will not accept everyone – we are going to have to say NO to some.

Who are you going to let in. Who are you going to say no to.
How many are you going to let in.
How difficult are you going to make getting in.

How are you going to deal with those who you are not going to let in, who are still going to find their way in anyway. In every arrangement by which you say no to some, Those you say no to are going to try to get in illegally – how are you planning to deal with that.

If you have not considered and ANSWERED these and other related questions – then you have not thought much about immigration and your opinion has little value.

I do not agree with Trump and republicans on immigration.
BUT to a large extent they have answered all my questions.
That means it is possible to discuss, debate, negotiate on those items that are most important to me.

The other aspect of the republican position is that they are striving towards something workable – towards a position consistent with the rule of law.

Democrats have no real position. They claim not to be for open borders – but all their positions on immigration boil down to “lets let in those who we respond to emotionally”

If that is your position – those who want in are going to get very good at plucking your heart strings.

If you announce that we are going to favor families with children – the border will get flooded with families with children. If you are going to favor unaccompanied children – you will near instantly see 100’s of thousands of unaccompanied adults. We saw this during the Obama administration where even hints that policy changes were being considered resulted in surges in those who might qualify under the new policies.

Right now we rant over “child separation” – yet in many instances we no very little about these “families” crossing our borders. The lefts “poster child” from the last “spat” turns out to be a child that was taken from her father who had custody without his permission.

In many instances these are not “families” these are near random collections of adults and children constructed to appear to be a family.

Further, why does one drag their children thousands of miles to cross the US border – subject them to drug dealers, violence, sexual assault, deserts, lack of food, or water ?
Is that responsible parenting ? Any US parent who did that would have their children removed from them. Yet we bemoan child separation ?

All or nearly all US immigrants are “economic immigrants”. They are not fleaing real violence or repressive regimes – not that the places they are fleeing are paragon’s of modern civilization.

That is not to be scoffed at – we should WANT those who have faced great hardship to get here to make a better life for themselves.
But we should not pretend these are victims of something.
They are at most victims of luck – they were not born in the US. That is all.

Regardless, immigration requires making tough choices – if you want open borders you have to be prepared to sacrifice the “safety net” or atleast severely restrict it.
That is a “tough choice”.
If you can not do that – then you have other tough choices.

Just constantly wearing your heart on your sleeves and bemoaning the poster child of the moment who can not get in means that you are not capable of reason.
And I am not interested in your viewpoint.

Well I have not thought completely through with all of what I would propose in an immigration reform bill since I have little doubt it would ever happen. You take away a major campaign issue.

But the three things I have a position on.
1. Anyone raised in America stays in America. They are more American than our last president was when he was in his 30’s since he was a foreign raised American citizen just because he had a birth certificate. He was American for about 15 years, they are American for 25-30+ years.
2.We need to look at needs based immigration and what professions coming to America benefit America.
3. If you have few restrictions, how do we address the welfare issues of those without work skills, language barriers and health issues? When economic downturns occur, who supports immigrants that cant support themselves.

And then we have the issues with language.Do we make all agencies provide services in English, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, French, German, etc or can we require immigrants to learn our language like immigrants from the early 1900’s did because they were proud to be in America.(As stated by my grandfather from Sweden many years ago)

Immigration reform is not going to happen because democrats have ZERO interest in actually making tough choices. They want chaos in immigration. They do not even want open borders.

This is why reform was not possible when democrats were in power. You will never get a reform bill that democrats will agree among themselves on.
Much less with republicans.

So long as there is chaos, the left will always be able to find some group to champion.
And that is what the left is after – to be able to hold this group or that and bemoan heartless republicans. Immigration is not a problem to be addressed for the left, it iis a political weapon that does not exist iif the problem is resolved.

There a bunch of overall choices – each of which has a very real cost that you can not pretend away.

You can not do that if you are on the left, the right or the middle.

You want open borders ? Then you are either going to fail as a nation or you will have to triage the safety net. Those can not coexist – without moving the problem of iiscriminating against people to citizenship or the safetynet.

If you back down from open borders – you are going to have to make other choices – discriminate.

The left is unable to address immigration because it does nto want to solve the problem – party because they think it is politial leverage and partly because it forces the left to confront a core ideological failure.

As to right, or center or whatever. There are infinite choices from open borders to Xenophobia. Most if not all can not work, but the failures of most are small and probably can be tolerated for a long time.

Regardless, there is no “correct choice”, nor even a choice that is inherently morally superior.

We do not actually know what has occurred.
We have good reason to believe Khoggi entered the Saudi Embassy, but not certainty.

We have some reason to believe he was tortured and killed – but the source of that information is Erdogan – not a reliable source.

Finally, though this does not justify murder. Khoggi was a Saudi. He did NOT have immunity.
He was also a US Person – NOT a US Citizen – our responsibilities for US person’s not Citizens outside the US and inside that of the country of their citizenship is near non-existent.

If this is true – which is likely – it should be condemned. But there is little more that we can or should do.

Who benefits from the modern culture of political correct victimhood ?

SWM – Straight White Men – because they are the only group denied safe spaces, the only group that has to survive in an adverse and hostile environment, they are the only group that is going to get stronger rather than weaker.

The SJW culture harms those it seeks to help and empowers those it seeks to destroy.

IBD tends to lean republican. But I found this article quite interesting.
It also ties with what Salena Zito has been saying – that the view from inside the blue bubble is quite different from that of the rest of the country.

Zito’s bubble is mostly geographic – red state Democrats are not “drinking the coolaide”

But IBD is essentially postulating that the leftists that control the democratic party and much of the media are disconnected from the rest of the country.

It should be self evident even from comments here that there are competing views of the world. That those on the left see the world one very specific way while the rest of us – not necessarily in agreement with each other, are still not seeing that same very specific world of the leftist democrats.

Read the comments here and elsewhere or listen to the media. This iis not really about two different competing world views. Those of us not on the left do NOT see the world the same from person to person. But equally important we grasp and understand that others do not see the world as we do. We not only see our own world, but we have some capaciity for trying to see that of others – including to some extent that of leftst democrats.

But the converse is not True As the IBD article notes, the Kavanaugh fight appears to have been a badly timed strategic blunder, The left presumed the rape allegations would provide a wedge issue that would separate some women and some moderates from the GOP. And if you listened to the left and the media you would beleiive that was true, that was what has happened. But Republican voter enthusiasm has risen significantly and is now either stable or rising. While democrats peaked and appear to be in a significant decline.

It is likely that the games regarding Kavanaugh had ZERO effect on the democratic base.
And ZERO effect on the republican base. But each parties base is less than 1/2 of their voters. That leaves an enormous number of voters both democrats republicans and independents outside either parties base. Indications are the net effect of the Kavanaugh circus on them was negative for democrats.

Things could still change before the election – and polls are notorious for underestimating the strength of republicans. Further in pretty much all elections republicans gain strength from September through the election. If elections were held in July or August Republicans would always lose.

But even if my crystal ball proves wrong. Zito’s observations and the slightly more partisan ones of IBD are still correct. Left Democrats and the media are disconnected from the people outside there own narrow base. They may on occasion reach them. But they do not know them. They do not understand them, They are barely cognizant of their existance.

Whether it is HRC’s deplorables remarks or Page’s remark that Clinton should win 100M:0
The left’s perception that people who think like them even exist is shallow.
Yes, the left knows some people vote republican. But they are completely unable to understand why. Therefore they have to make up these stupid claims like Raciism, or Russian interferance, or mysogyny or Wolf Whistles or fake news on FB.

It is not that there is absolutely zero evidence that these delusional reasons exist. It is the left is incapable of getting past that mostly they are noise. That as Cassius said “The flaw is in ourselves and not our stars”

The left lost in 2016 because voters rejected the left. Absolutely it was a narrow thing. Absolutely if any of a dozen things had not happened – it could have gone the other way.
But the left is not capable of seeing that if any of another dozen things had not happened it could have been a Trump landslide. Trump came within a small number of votes of winning the entire rust belt. And fairly close to adding NH and NV to his win column.

But I am not posting specifically about the election – that is just the example.
The fact is the left – more than any of the rest of us (and we all have this problem) is incabable of seeing any views but its own.

Whatever the truth value of Trump’s latest late night Tweet.
Trump has kept a YUGE number of campaign promises, and nearly died trying to keep the rest.

He has kept ones that I wish he had not. But the fact that he kept them is meaningful.

I disagree with Marc Thiessen on one thing – it is not “too early to tell”.
Trump’s other brags – what the left calles lies may be far less true than he claims.

But can not think of a President in US history that has done so well keeping their campaign promises in their ENTIRE term. Trump has not been in office 2 years and he has kept a very large portion of his.

I keep trying to point out to others here that Trump is a businessman, and credibility is the ONLY currency of business. The idiotic dark view that all too many have of business obscures this. We trust that when we buy a burger at McDonalds we will get very near what we expect. Free markets would not survive if those engaged in exchange did not feel they had come out ahead atleast 90% of the time – possibly more.

You do not really beleive you are cheated most of the time.
If you did you would not engage in free exchange.

The media and several of you here want to rant about Trump’s decades of business.

And yet myraids of people are willing to lend Trump Billions of dollars or invest in his projects.
Those do not always succeed – despite Trump’s bragadocia. But they do more than well enough to make the overwhelming majority of his creditor’s happy.

Credit – the amount of money that strangers will loan you is virtually identical to trustworthiness.

It does not mean you never lie. But it does mean that you are incredibly honest about what is important – like repaying creditors, like keeping significant promises.

I do not like Trump. I do not agree with him.

But increasingly I trust him. Even when I wish he would not, he keeps his promises.
I know exactly where I stand with him.

Does anyone beleive that Clinton or Sanders would have even try to keep their promises ?
Many of us were praying that they were the liars that nearly all politiicans were – because we thought Clinton would win, and we were iin deep shit iif she actually did what she prmissed.

“Kushner Paid No Federal Income Tax for Years, Documents Suggest
Confidential documents reviewed by The Times indicate that Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, probably paid little or no income tax from 2009 to 2016.”

I know some of you don’t have access to NYT articles, including one self-proclaimed and proud landlord, so I am giving you the last paragraph from the progressive leaning NYT’s article. If it is important enough to see the rest, please feel free to buy tomorrow’s NYT.

“At least in part because of that perk, the Kushners’ property sales in the period covered by the documents — totaling about $2.3 billion, according to Real Capital Analytics, a research firm — generated little or no taxable income for Mr. Kushner.
Last year’s tax legislation eliminated that benefit for all industries but one: real estate.”

Jay, instead of sharing tweets and articles, could you take the time to explain why we should be involved in this.

Are we the worlds cop? I fail to understand your concern. He was not American unless you think anyone living in America is American. He was a foreign journalist assigned to an American office. Again Saudi Arabia is a weak ally if even that. They practice Wahhabism, a strict form of Islam, with few rights for citizens. Turkey is basically a dictatorship. Should we get involved with every person murdered by their government and demand answers from that government?

The other issue that some do not realize that think we should have interfered with this case is Trump was in the middle of negotiating a release of the Pastor from Turkey. Maybe not saying much had to do with the finalization of that issue.

Is that illegal?
If so, why has the IRS ignored this?
If not, demand your legislator introduce legislation to change the tax code ifnyou dont like the law.

REMEMBER….Presidents do not legislate. They do sign or veto. Congress legislates. So could it be that Richard Blum and others like him may have some influence over congress and that is why real estate was left off the table?

Note: Diane Feinstein is married to Richard Blum, real estate magnate worth between $1B to $2B.

“Trump’s business relationships with the Saudi government — and rich Saudi business executives — go back to at least the 1990s. In Trump’s hard times, a Saudi prince bought a superyacht and hotel from him. The Saudi government paid him $4.5 million for an apartment near the United Nations.

Business from Saudi-connected customers continued to be important after Trump won the presidency. Saudi lobbyists spent $270,000 last year to reserve rooms at Trump’s hotel in Washington. Just this year, Trump’s hotels in New York and Chicago reported significant upticks in bookings from Saudi visitors.”

“Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million,” Trump told a crowd at an Alabama campaign rally in 2015. “Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.”

What are the Vegas odds on anything from Trump The Glorous for the Saudis but a cosmetic grouch?

Dave, I could care less if a president owns a business and through a business deal with a foreign government that business makes money. If Michael Bloomberg runs for president and is elected, then his businesses can generate revenues from foreign transactions. I have no doubt in my mind at all some investigative reporter for a conservative news agency would find illegal transactions, just as I have no doubt a liberal investigative reporter would find that of Trumps organizations.

My sharing the link on the court case was to inform Jay that his concerns was being addressed and hopefully settled shortly. But nothing in our judicial system is “shortly” anymore.

If Bloomberg were elected – there would not be these ludicrously stupid Emoluments clause court cases. There were none regarding Clinton as Sec State. No president has ever faced this kind of garbage before. Aside from the last one announced all but one have been dismissed and that one narrowed to meaninglessness.

My issue is the once again politically bent interpretation of the constitution.

An Emolument is a payment in return for an advantage – essentially a bribe.
The Emoluments clause does not prohibit free exchange having nothing to do with government. It does nto even prohibit exchange between an office holder and government itself – as seen in GW’s dealings with the Federal government.

If the emoluments clause as written is different from what people want today – change the law or change the constitution.

I have no problem with the press digging into Trump’s businesses – any more than I have a problem with their digging into those of Clinton.

But I have a problem with manufacturing noe interpretations of the law or constitution.

This is a part of exactly why the law and the constitution MUST be read as written.
That is the only way that provides us with a single meaning that all of us can know ahead of time what iit will be. We do not have to agree that is what the law SHOULD be, but we can all knew what it is.

Changing the meaning of the law by political machinations within the courts is IMMORAL.

It is essentially the same as retro-active law. It means you can not know when you at whether what you do is proper or not – because the court could read the law or constitution differently tomorrow.

If you do not like the law as it is – fine. I quite often do not like it as it is either.

But there is a process for changing bad law or flaws in the constitution.

I am mostly going to ignore your remarks – not because they are right or wrong, but because they are 2nd or 3rd order.

The absolute first criteria you really must decide – is how many people are you allowing in.
Because without deciding that – in at least a general way, you can not work out many other issues.

The numbers are critical because those strongly effect other choices.

If the number of legal immigrants is small – their effect on other things is also small.
If the number of legal immigrants is small it does not matter how you decide birth right citizenship, or paths to citizenship, or rights to entitlements or ….

If you go all the way to near open borders – then myriads of other issues such as citizenship and entitlements become absolutely critical.

As to “who” you allow in – it does not matter alot to me.

But you – whether left or right need to face up to the fact that you are DISCRIMINATING.

If as you say you allow those who have been raised here to stay – you are incentivizing illegal immigration and you will get more of it.

If you make the path to citizenship too easy – no matter who you let in you wiill incentivize illegal immigration and you will get more of iit.

Every choice you make will incentivize those who wish to come here to try to fit that framework – lying and cheating if necessary.

Further no matter what chocies you make – there will always be some group you must say no to.

Are you going to allow those who fought iin the US military to stay ? to become citizens ?
Are you going to allow those who went to college to stay ?
Do we want smarter people ?
Do we prefer christians ? Jews ? Muslims ?

What about asians over hispanics ? over blacks ?

What of people from nations that have experienced disasters ?
What of very poor nations ?
What of very backward nations ?
What of very repressive nations ?

What of people who are oppressed ?
What constitutes “oppressed” ?

Given that the left has made a cult fetiish of viictim worshiip – we are going to encourage everyone in the world who wants into the US to self identify as a victim.

Even if you say you wish to allow people in based on some kind of merit system.

Who are you to play god, to decide who has merit ?

Just to be clear – I am not mailigning people for making these tough decisions.

What II am trying to point out is that There is no answer to immigration that does NOT involve playing good. There is no answer that does not pick winners AND LOSERS..

This morning I read a number of letters to the editor in our local paper. Most of these letters had to do with the Judge K issue. Many were of concern to me not because of the out come of that issue since that has been decided, but the thinking of those writing the letters. Maybe that thinking has always existed and just not voiced in the past. But now that it has been voiced, I wonder where we really are headed.

Basically the jest of the comments can be summed up in one writers comment ” When you go to court, you are found guilty or not guilty. You are not found innocent. It just means not enough evidence was presented to prove you committed the crime, it does not mean you are innocent.”

I always thought one was presumed innocent until proven guilty. Is that not part of the constitution and the UN declaration of human rights?

Seems to me we are wading into deep waters where one is eventually going to have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt their innocence to be found “not guilty” with thinking like this developing.

Our legal system finds you guilty or not guilty – and the standard is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt – anything else does not justify the use of force to take one’s freedom or property.

The assumption of innoence is different though related. It means the courts can not justifiiably act as if you have been found guilty prior to having done so.

Much of what courts do prior to trial as an example VIOLATE that principle.
Much was made in the manafort case of Manafort violating court orders or bail conditions.
The constitution guarantees reasonable bail – it is a right. The courts have very limited ability to apply conditions to a right.
Courts can order prosecutors around – they are elements of the government. They have no legiitimate authority to order the defendant to do anything but continue to abide by the existing law. They can not gag the defendant or his lawyer.

But all of the above iis specific to Criminal courts.

As an individual in your own private conduct not involving the use of force – you are not obligated to presume innocence.

Even in the courts – outside of criminal matters the standard of proof is NOT beyond a reasonable doubt.

Much was made – even by me that the Kavanaugh confirmation is much like a job interview – and it is. The standard is NOT beyond a reasonable doubt, and there is no automatic presumption of innocence.

But there are things that are different between a confirmation and a job interview.

A supreme court confirmation is a government action – and therefore MUST conform to due process and equal protection.

As a practical matter we can not have a process where a mere accusation is sufficient to guarantee one result.

Finally – our senators and congressmen within the confines or the law and constitution are free to acts as they please – including making circuses of confirmation hearings.

And voters are free to chose how they vote.

It appears that the choices of democrats regarding the Kavanaugh confirmation are being weighed by voters in this election – and democrats are being found wanting.

In 2016 voters had the oportunty to weigh the choices of republicans regarding Garland, and they did NOT find republiicans wanting.

Posters here constantly bemoan the lack of political power of moderates and independents.

That is BUNK. Those of us not sychophants of one party or another. Those NOT part of the “base” ultimately decide nearly all elections.

Democrats and republicans alike must try to keep their base happy.
But they can not win elections without gaining the support of the majority OUTSIDE their base.

Democrats can rant about Garland from now to the end of days.
But voters – MODERATE Voters did NOT chose to punish repoblicans.
MODERATE voters decided that Republican conduct was eiither legitimate or sufficiently inoffensive as to not alter their vote.

Ron, we are wading into polluted waters up to our noses. The swamp has now become the SWAMP. World leaders are encouraged by our president, who in turn was encouraged by Putin and the populists being elected to do whatever they want. Can you blame MBS for doing in Turkey (also a bad actor led by Erdogan) and others like Netanyahu to just roll over people as they have always done, but now with a silent cheerleader.
I’m not going to convince you, and especially Dhlli, that the whole K episode with K was disastrous episode in our country that was already partly divided. And it was all aided and abetted by the Dems.

Innocent until proven guilty does not apply anyway in this case, it was a job interview.

“I’m not going to convince you, and especially Dhlli, that the whole K episode with K was disastrous episode in our country that was already partly divided. And it was all aided and abetted by the Dems.”

Agree 100% with first sentence. But second sentence should read “And it was all caused by how Senator Feinstein handled the accusation”.

dduck, that is a bunch of BS and you know it. What we did in high school has nothing to do with the type of person we are today, unless you were Mr. Goody Goody,Southern Baptist or attended Liberty University/Brigham Young. One only needs to attend college football games to see how much drinking goes on with kids and the security people don’t do a thing until someone gets out of line. They are blind to the drinking. And back then, the drinking age in some states was 18, so it was legal for them to be drinking until sometime in 1984.

What I would like to see completed is an investigation as to who leaked that letter. It was not leaked until the day or two after it got to the FBI. Feinstein says she was not the one, her staff did not do it, so it must have been the FBI because everyone else says they did not have a copy of the original, only the redacted copy.

And if it was the FBI, then we still have a huge problem in a department of justice that can not follow the law.

But as long as we have everyone with TDS looking for anything and everything, nothing is going to be looked at like it should be.

By the way, I heard that the Mueller Investigation is winding down. People reassigned to his work are returning to their original jobs. Some information is being reassigned to regional FBI offices. So it appears that little has been found in the way of federal issues based on the timelines now being followed.

It is beyond a reasonable doubt that the ciircus was caused by democrats.
It is not even more likely than not that responsibilty fell on Feinstein. There are numerous possible sources by which the press could have gotten Ford’s letter – aside from Fenstein.

First is was the rest of the world scorned us because of Trump aka Putin sock puppet.

Now it is the rest of the world is following us because of Trump aka Putin sock puppet.

Maybe you should make up your own mind about things with less regard for the rest of the world.

Get a clue – there are bad actors in the world.

If you were rational you would recognized that while Trump wields more actual power than anyone else in the world, he has done far less evil than any of the bad actors you are noting.

Frankly you should look carefully at Putin – and erdogan, and SA, and ….

First as evil as each might be, there are few that reach the level of evil of many past villians.
As our standard of living rises it becomes increasingly hard for tyrants to thrive.

Next – whatever we might think of our leaders and our country – there really are few places and leaders in the world that are better.

The left is ranting about Trump’s immigration polices. Name a country in europe that has more “enlightened” immigration ?
The same is true of our issues regarding race. We continue to discriminate for myriads of reasons, but systemic discrimination is small to non-existant in the US. Almost nowhere else in the world can say that – not even europe.
There is no country as diverse.

Trump did not accomplish this (nor did Obama), and contra the left he is not making them worse.

In fact under Trump improvement is greatest for minorities in this country – and the least for progressive elites.

“Innocent until proven guilty does not apply anyway in this case, it was a job interview.”

undertand the merits of that argument. Though the argument itself is flat out wrong.

What is true is that Kavanaugh has absolutely no right to become a supreme court justice – just as no one has a right to a job.

The logic is absolutely correct regarding Kavanaugh.
It is however wrong with respect to the rest of us.

The senate can accept or reject a nomination as it pleases.

But it may not use the confirmation process as a trial by combat or as a gauntlet to be run or as a means of defaming anyone who aspires to an appointment.

When a part of government participates in defaming someone – even someone “applyiing for a job” – we are outside the norms of a “job interview”.

If you want a job somewhere – is it typiical for you to have to face criminal accusations broadcast to the entire planet to secure that job ?

The senate is not the same as a court – t can chose its own standard of proof.
Absent a threat to life liberty or property – the presumption of innocence and the beyond a reasonable doubt standard need not apply.

Arguably each senator is even entiitled to their own standard.

What is true though is that the “all accusations much be beleived” standard will result in no one ever again being confirmed for anything.

It is not Kavanaugh that is entitled to the presumption of innocence, it is the american people.

It’s eaay to trust Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck more than Donald Trump.This is an entertaining if highly partisan video.House and Senate Republicans asked for this criticism when they gave almost all of the 2017 tax cut to the top 1%, leaving most Americans only the scraps. https://t.co/SCUEpqXBa9

Why would anyone on earth trust anyone on the left on anything having anythiing at all to do with economics.

This whole video is pretty good – though the point I am looking to raise is just after 15:30
Just to be clear. Prior to about 1500 just about EVERYONE lived in abject poverty.
The development of merchantiilism (not even actual capiitalism) in the west at that time suddenly quintulpples the standard of living for everyone in the west.
Starting in the mid 1700’s (in the west) the birth of capitaliism put standard of living on an exponential increase. Subsequently the rest of the world slowly adopted free markets – with the same sudden near vertical rise iin standard of livin iin each country as it shifted to freer markets.

There are no exceptions. Absolutely the rich got richer. The richest people have become rich beyond beleif. BUT at the same time the poorest people on earth today are richer than the kings of a few centuriies back.

f Trump’s tax cuts were actually only for the rich – you would still be better off.
And that is what we are seeing.

“Proud Boys’ Violence Spills Onto New York City Streets – Fox News Blames Antifa
Fox claimed, ‘Antifa strikes again – swords and vandalism at New York GOP office,’ suggesting the violence came from the left, despite the fact that Proud Boy’s founder Gavin McInnes appeared with the sword.”

Not personally a McInnes fan, and have no idea why anyone would invite him anywhere.

Regardless, the location was vanadlized by Antifa, prior to the event, and notes were left telling the “proud boys” to expect violence if McInnes spoke – he did.
When he left, he and his escort were attacked. They successfully overpowered their attackers and left.

Even the video provided by Antifa shows this.
Various Antifa members repeatedly charging McInnes security, getting diispatched and chased away and returning to try again.

McInnes people did not initiate anything, and quickly after the initial encounter they regrouped and left. They did not chase anyone.

A. Your take on these events, which began with the invite from the Republican club to a white supremacist organization to speak, is persuasive and after reading your explanation New Moderate denizens now understand that “near neo-nazis behave better than democrats.”

I have no problem with a Club inviting McInnes to speak.
We should here viewpoints that challenge our own.

Read John Stuart Mill – you can not know someone else is wrong and you are right unless you listen to what they say.

I have no idea whether Proud Boys iis actually racist or whatever else you toss at them.
I do know that their “about page” – below does not sound at all like you describe.
They claim they are not ever right wing extremists.

Well, Ron, if I am BSing, and I’m not, then you are blind to the risk that all or some of the things we have heard about BK MIGHT be true. I am willing to forget HS, but cannot totally ignore college and his, in my opinion, out of control response in the committee hearing to Ford and the bashing he was taking by the Dems. OK, the big thing is lying to Congress with his Clinton like “it depends what is is”. I called out BC for lying and I call out someone getting a LIFETIME appointment.
Call that BS, I know I am not. What I am is cautious as possible when it comes to SC folks.
And yes, I think SC judges should keep their mouths shut, they are despicable.

Of course we have to paint Kanye as nuts.
Otherwise how do we excuse all the talking heads calling him a house nigger, or uncle tom.
or calling his visit to the white house vaudeville blackface.

You can think what you want of Kanye. You can make whatever accusations you wish – true or otherwise. He is more successful than his leftist detractors – and honestly more coherent – no matter how nuts he might sound.

No matter, he is saying something you do not like, supporting someone you do not like.
He must be taken down.

Some label must be applied – racist, misogynist, ….

Didn’t the media get totally wigged out because Trump mocked a (quite able) parapelegic reporter who was heckling him ?

Why don;t the same rules apply to all those often black talking heads on the media.
Presuming as they claim that Kanye must be disturbed – I thought the left required that we understand those with issues – not insult them and call them names on national TV.
How exactly is what they are doing, what YOU are doing different from what Trump was accused of with the disabled reporter ?

The only difference I can see is that West might actually be a real threat to the left.

I have no idea what Trump offered nor whether he is or should be morally or ethically obligated to honor it.

I do know that despite the hype Warrens test is a Failure. She has less than 1/2 the indian genese of the average white american. The Boston Globe article has Math errors – she is possibly approx 1/1024 some form of indian. I have not checked my DNA but the odds are 3 out of 4 that I have more Indian DNA than she does. There is no indian group/tribe in the US that would accept her as a member based on 1/1024th Most do not accept 1/32 which is what the BG article claims in error.

So what does Warrne owe the rest of us for this Fauxcahauntus nonsense.

Or are we all indians now ?

I would further remind you that she used her purted heritage to get her jobs ar UofP and Harvard.

She iis no diifferent from the white firefiighters who claimed to be part black to get a job.

He didn’t offer the $1M for her to take a test, he offered the $1M for her to take a test that PROVED that she was an Indian.

Unless you’re a believer in the one-drop theory, her test results proved that she is definitely NOT Native American. As it turns out, she’s about as white as can be.

I think that this dopey controversy is 100% Warren’s fault ~ she faked being a minority to get ahead, and she’s been lying about it ever since. She should have just said that her family always told her that she was part Cherokee, and that she believed it until she took a DNA test. Everyone would have just forgotten about it and moved on.

Just as Joe Biden plagiarizing writings years ago and that issue being old news, so too will this be old news when she runs. No one will care and if she is the nominee, she wont even need to respond to Trump calling her Pocohantas.

One talking head noted – Trump is not the one going to destroy Warren with this.

To get to Trump she is going to have to get through a primary.
Just as the “birther” stuff regarding Obama was started by Sidney Blumenthal from Clinton’s campaign, Warren will be “scalped” over this by democratic opponents before getting to Trump.

I think Trump would be absolutely ecstatic to have Warren as a political opponent.

I have personally met Warren when she taught at UofP – she taught my wife. She taught business law – and she was NOT nearly as left as she paints herself today.

But she has chosen to place herself just to the right of Sanders.
And like Clinton she is in bed with wall street and big business at the same time she is publicly decrying them.

The Fauxcahontus meme will play extremely well – because like clinton it is trivial to paint her as two faced, insncere, and not trustworthy.

The most important story is that she LIED in the hopes of personal advantage.

About the same time as this story first arrose there was a story about two firefighters who lost their jobs – and then got them back by changing their race to african-american.
They were eventually caught, fired, charged and prosecuted.

I am sure they could have had a DNA test done and found they were 1/1024th african-american or some minority – just about every white person in this country is.

Warren’s “indian” genes are so low that you have to go to england to find people with less.

Further – Warren was not matched against “american indians” or “Cherokee” as she claimed to be. But Mexican, chilean, and peruvian DNA – as there is no source of sufficient “american indian” DNA to distinguish genes that are unique to american indians.

Indian tribes do not use DNA to establish membership.

In many instances even where a person can prove far closer biological ties to a tribe, they are still rejected, if they are sufficiently disconnected from the culture.

1/32 indian “blood” is not typically sufficient – if you have spent 5 generations living entirely n a white world.

Warren initially claimed that her grandmother was discriminated against for being part cherokee – that should be obvious nonsense at this point.

I honestly do not understand why having had the DNA test, Warren was stupid enough to go public and make a campaign add.

What politician in their right mind wants to go out of their way to publicly say

hillary and her idiotic why be civil? comments. Will she ever just go away?

Minnesota Senate candidate Karin Housley and her 2009 flat out racist comments on Michelle Obama (thankfully, she is losing). How many gop officials have I now heard claim that comparisons between Obama and Michelle to various primates is no big deal, just good clean natural political fun? Not buying it. Every time some liberal says or does some stupid thing that puts liberals in the worst light, I cringe. I wonder, do conservatives ever do the same? I suspect that some do. Way to go people, work double hard reinforcing all the worst stereotypes, the internet will make you famous for a minute.

Georgia Senator David Perdue grabs a student’s camera away after being asked about voter suppression, claims he thought the student wanted a “selfie.”

And, the number one winner for a public official making me want to puke is: Idaho Fish and Game commissioner Blake FIscher

Oh, and lets not forget the Metropolitan Republican Club and their featured guests the Proud Boys. Brilliant, show them who you are. Republicans of character must be mortified.

And, as a sort of liberal I am, as always, disgusted by the goons of Antifas who believe they have a right to use violence. trump wants to be more popular? Let him use his presidential resources to further the prosecution of those guilty of antfas violence, the goons of the far left.
I’d cheer him for that.

But what kind of Republican organization invites a proud racist organization as their guests? Yes, they have the right of free speech. Having a right and using it intelligently judiciously are two separate things. This is what we need more of, the far right vs. the far left fighting in the streets.

Idiots, we are surrounded by idiots, its the largest organization in the world, their members are everywhere.

Grump: It’s all legal and the animals had free choice to hide from him.
The Rep club also was just fostering free speech so as to be an example to the formerly Snowflake colleges (now they are mobs) that shout down or block anyone that tis not a liberal.

I don’t know if this relates to the baboon Hunt by the US idiot ( and I don’t respect humans who hunt animals with high tech guns from a distance; only kill hat you’re gonna eat) – but baboons are considered pest scavenger animals in Africa, deserving population reduction.

Or maybe instead of presuming that there are multii-layered hidden agenda’s – as I said before I am not a McInnes fan – and he definiitely does NOT strike me as someone capable of the 3 level deep plotting you are attributing to him.

Regardless, McInnes is apearently a WWII in the Pacific Buff and was invited to participate in a re-enactment of a specific event during WWII – hends the samurii sword.

We saw at Charlottesville that the alt-right is capable of deliberately baiting the left.
We also saw that the left is stupid and easily bated.
And we saw that the press is so owned that they will misrepresent the aggressor as the defendor.

Just as we are seeing now – and even hear.

At Charlottesville – where the alt-right deliberately provoked the left,
The deliberately the night before went on campus with their tiki torches and stirred things up, trying to assure that the next day their would be plenty of counter protestors,
The alt-right at Charlottesville was deliberately seeking to be attacked by the left at the march the next day. They had hoped to have created a situation where they were certain to be attacked, and certain to be viewed as the victim while at the same time being capable of defending themselves.

While I do NOT share the same values as the alt-right, I do not have the slightest problem with this tactic. Ghandi and the civil rights movement used it all the time.
The only distinction is that the alt-right took steps to be able to defend themselves – they brought shields and helmets. Some such as the New York Militia even brought guns.

The marchers at Charlottesville missed four things in their planning.
First that the approach used by Ghandi and MLK works best iif you DO NOT defend yourself, if your opponent beats, bloodies and even kills you – hopefully on national TV.
Next that the media controls the narrative and the difference between th aggressor and the defendor is as small as the camera angle and the tone of a story.
Third that law enforcement was controlled by the left and order to withdraw. The distinction between aggressors and defenders would have been crystal clear had the leftists had to go through the police to get at the alt-right. These alt-right groups understood the police might not protect them – hence their shields and helmets. They did not understand the effect that would have on perception.
And finally that if someone on the left gets hurt – that must occur as part of direct conflict initiated by the left. The entire narrative changes is so little as one mentally disturbed member of your group, panics and does something stupid.

I have been in conflicts where I have had to stand up tall go toe to toe with those on the other side and essentially say “hit me”. Though the context was “legal” rather than physical the rules are still fundamentally the same.
You can not blink, and you can not make a mistake – not even a small one.
You must keep the pressure on the other party, waiting for them to make a mistake, but you can not slip, you can not even appear to be angry. You have to be particularly vigilant with respect to the above if you are already in an environment that is prejudiced against you.

As we see here with this McInnes visit.

Apologists for the left are working overtime to blame republcians, to blame McInnes/

If Armed Nazi’s were invited to a republican club in NYC, and came and on the way out were attacked by Antifa and some antifa protestors were killed – the actual responsibility would rest with antiifa.

One of the stupid arguments that the left and too many here are making – is that somehow Republicans are responsible for the viiolence of the moment.
The core of the argument is that Republiicans are responsible because they are bad people.

If someone Heckles Trump and starts fighting with others at the event
the media, the left as a whole ignore the fact that iit was the heckler who inciited viiolence, and even the heckler who actually started the violence.

In the world of the left – and too many here, it is OK to provoke, and even initiate violence – if you and the media portray you as “the good guys”.
Everything is relative, there is not such things as right and wrong. It must always be judged in some context.

We now have Clips of Whoppi Goldberg on the view arguing that Polanski’s rape of a 13 year old was not “rape rape” that the fact that she was 13 and he was 40 does nto matter, that she was drugged does nto matter. The fact that bad things happened to Polanski matters and justify his conduct, the fact that he beleiived that the judge was going to renigge on the sweetheart deal he had been given and that justified fleeing and somehow means he is not a rapist. This is the same Goldberg who on the same show years later is arguing that What Ford alleges is clearly true and that Kavanaugh’s actions are “rape rape”.

Women lie – when they accuse prominent leftists such as Bill Clinton,
But not when they accuse without evidence someone on the right.

It is not the facts that matter, it is who is being accused and who is doing the accusing that matters to the left.

The same people HERE who were telling us all that photographs of Franken grabbing the breasts of a women who is asleep are not sufficient evidence, are telling us that the accusation without evidence denied by everyone who was purportedly there is sufficient to call what is described as very nearly the same thing – forcibly grabbing a woman through her cloths without her consent rape.

If you do not believe that the photo’s of Franken groping Tweeden are sexual assault, then you are not free to believe Ford.

But everything for the left – and too many here is about WHO, not about WHAT.
If you are on the right and accused – you are guilty. If you are on the left and your conduct is established beyond at doubt – then you had good intentions.

If McInnes is attacked by leftists – it is his fault – always, no matter what – because he is a racist – because we say so, and that makes everything his fault.

MCINNES would not be my first choice as a guest. But he has more marbles than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – aside from actually trying to sell socialism after it has failed everywhere – have you ever watched her on n an interveiw ? If she ever does anything that is not a puff peice, she is toast.

I will bet McInnes can atleast add. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a degree in economics yet can not manage simple math.

I am no fan of McInnes – but as always the left labels anyone to the right of Clinton a racist.

Regardless, unless you think that non-lefties must take being pummeled, responsibiility for the viiolence rests SOLELY with Antifa.

So someone you do not like comes to a club you do not like to speak about Japan, and left wing nuts acost hiim on the way out and this iis somehow his or republiicans fault ?

BTW I absolutely support scheduling unpopular speakers. I want to know What people like McInnes have to say – I want to know if they are as ie as you clam.
IIf you have not heard and listened to an oppiinion, you can not morally criticise it.

“I am no fan of McInnes – but as always the left labels anyone to the right of Clinton a racist.”

I knew I could get you to do this Dave and it was as easy as I thought it would be. McInnes is a racist. It has nothing to do with the left labeling anyone.

“McInnes has referred to himself as a “western chauvinist” and started a men’s organization called Proud Boys who swear their allegiance to this cause.[52][53][54][55][56][57][excessive citations] In 2003 McInnes said, “I don’t want our culture diluted. We need to close the borders now and let everyone assimilate to a Western, English-speaking way of life.”[58]”

(Ironically, he calls himself a libertarian).

“Judaism and anti-Semitism
In March 2017, during a trip to Israel with The Rebel Media, McInnes made controversial comments defending Holocaust deniers, accused the Jews of being responsible for the Holodomor and the Treaty of Versailles, and said he was “becoming anti-Semitic”. He later said his comments were taken out of context.[67] McInnes also produced a video for Rebel called “Ten Things I Hate about Jews”, later retitled “Ten Things I Hate About Israel”.[68][40][69]””

As i said – I do not agree with McInnes. Your cites do NOT prove racism.

The prove that he has views that you do not like.

Go look at the list of values the Proud boys espouse on their website – they are very libertarian. The question is whether they believe and adhere to what they claim to believe.
If not that would make them something else – democrats.

So McInnes might be anti-semitic to some degree – the current DNC is pretty hostile to jews.

Sienma spoke very favorably of witches – should we burn her at the stake ?

People in public life should be held accountable for what they say.
But few remarks are a political death sentence. Past views are important – but less important if they do not appear to be current.

Sienama’s problem right now – is not her extremist past. It is the perception of voters that her current moderate persona is a facade – that the past is the real Sienama.

That problem is of her own creation.

As I noted – I am not a fan of McInnes.
For reference I find Farakahn more offensiive, and Sharpton about as offensive.
McInnes has the virtue of being right about many things.

I am not the arbiter of what is libertarian, but if “proud boys” actually adhere to the princiiples they list – they are atleast as “libertarian” as “bleeding hearts libertarians”, or Cass Sunstein who has also on occasion self-identified as libertarian.
I disagree with him alot to. But To some extent he is libertarian.

Ocasio-Cortez is a democrat – that is atleast as at odds with being democrat as McInnes is with being libertarian.

I am not personally big on the cultural or Immigration facets he fixates on. Nor can I tell for certain from his web site exactly what he means by some of the things he says that offend you.

As an example – I think assimilation is a good thing. But I do not think that government has any business in it. I also think diversity is a good thing. They are competing values.
Neither is inherently right or wrong.

Democrats opposed immigration for much of the past. Labor has a long history of opposing immigration and labor has traditionally been democratic. McInnes appears to be reflecting a set of blue collar values that were those of many democrats before the last election.
I do not agree with those – but they do not make McInnes the next Adolph Hilter.

Ii have a majro problem with the agressive deliberate effort of the left to completely discredit the west and the enlightenment and to try to write iit out of history.

Absolutely figures from Columbus through Jefferson were repugnant by modern standards.
They STILL change the world – and for the better. They participated in the slow advance of the western cultures and values that have inarguably made the world a far better place today, and improved our lives in a very short period of time in ways that have NEVER happened before.

India, Greece, China, Persia all had everything that the west had going for it AND MORE, china was more wealthy than the entire rest of the world through 1900. /it was more technologically advanced – it is likely the chinese reached the new world more than a century before the west.

The only thing “magical” about the west – the reason that merchatilism – a shity economic system that was STILL far better than anything that preceded it, and then later free markets suddenly exploded was the VALUES AND THOUGHT of the west – the rise of the concept of the individual, of individual liberty.

I would not use “western chauvanism” – but absolutely the west should be studied – warts and all, but the bottom line still MUST be – that the western values of individual liberty are inseparable from the sudden exponantial improvement in the human condiiction.

The modern left seeks to deny that – the objective is NOT to dismiss Jefferson or Locke, or Columbus, but to dismiss entiirely the notion that the values that the west first raised to prominence are themselves to be dismissed.

They are not – If that is what McInnes means by “western chauvanism” – I would prefer different terms.

If you have not studied Socrates, Aristotle, Kant, Locke, Theroux or their peers and their thoughts – iif you have substituted the leading lights from the rest of the world – for all yous laudable scholarship you remain ignorant of the most important thought in human history.

Well this is interesting. I appreciate you sharing this information. Just another case of the GOP nominating candidates that can’t keep their damn mouths shut. Delaware witch, the doofus in Nevada, the “can’t get pregnant from rape” idoit from Missouri, the ass in the White House (better than the bitch that the democrats outdid the GOP that time). But I have to wonder if we had an honest media, would we not see more on the left with pea sized brains like the GOP with them making dumb comments also.

Apparently they have the same problem with baboons as we have in many states with deer. Being over run with the animals.

I hate to say it, but I wish we had year around hunting for deer in North Carolina, at least a couple years. They have become so over populated, you cant drive 10 miles in the fall without seeing 3-4 laying along the roads where they have been hit by cars. And the state can pick them up one day and the next there will be another laying there. 20 years ago we never saw that other than in eastern NC along interstates.

Oh, the media are full participants. I have tuned out the WaPo as completely as the Huff Po, simply complete inability to keep their powder dry. Here, in Vt we have a moderate GOP governor who is well liked who is the only thing keeping us from total Dem control, at least for the last two years. The local papers are working furiously trying to find anything they can manufacture in the way of a negative story on him. Which is why, jeez, it was now decades ago, that I went to war with the Vermont papers and got right up in their faces, and they in mine, I am still quite proud of that phase.

OK, here is some actual good news and it jibes with my own experiences:

80% dislike PC. Yes, the other 20% are predominantly progressives, which is among the top ten reasons that I may be a little liberal but i will never be progressive and generally I wish their movement would wither and vanish.

These are not the same people as those behind the berkeley free speach movement in the 60’s . These are not the people who fought for civil liberties.

The modern left iis not about freedom.

The modern left has replaced the marxist fixation of class and class warfare with a fixations on a heirarchy of victimization – intersectionaliity

It is about weakness and about making us weaker. Humans are anti-fragile – we grow and grow stronger from stresses. Our muscles, our minds grow stronger because we are subject to stresses. As we have made our homes cleaner and more insular – we have developed more and more allergies – we become more fragile as we are more protected – not stronger.

The modern left seeks to make us weaker not stronger.

Even the demographics – of the 20% of people who do support “Political correctness” the largest group of these are affluent highly educated whites.

Modern leftism is the most actually racist group in the world today.

If victims and the oppresed must be protected – there must be a protector – and that is of course those highly educated afluent whites.

On multiiple levels the culture of victimhood, and oppression makes those victims weaker not stronger. This is a model for infinite power and tryany.

Maybe they are “racist” – but if so you must be arguing they are “crypto-racists” and that description fits the elite on the left quite well. Pretending to be one thing while actually being the opposite.

If something is wrong – then it is wrong no matter who does it.
It is wrong if some republican candidate does it.
It is wrong if Trump does it.
It is wrong when those on the left do it.

I am fully prepared to condem Trump and the GOP candidate
Are you prepared to condem everyone on the left who has have anything to do with this antropomorphic Trump cartoons ? Anyone who has laughed at them ?

aside from “if republiicans do it, it is wrong” – what is your actual standard ?

I certainly can not tell, and pointing out that Trump compared ODonnel to a pig
makes rather than refutes my question.

It makes it clear that you are only offended when republicans insult democrats.
That the reverse is acceptable.

That your concept of right and wrong is situational, and condictioned on who does something rather than what iis done.

The differences are simple – Sienma is on the left – past idiotic conduct is excusable.
ODonnell was not she must be batty.

We are seeing the same with Kanye.
I only watched a bit of the Kanye Oval Office, It did not particularly mean anything to me. I am not into Rap or Hip-Hop and not a west fan. The behavior of celebritiies is often wierd.

What did strike me was the immediate incredibly racist response from the media.
Had Anne Coulter or Ben Shapiro made similar remarks about a democratii black entertainer – they would have been completely politically finished for ever.

Milo Yiannopoulos failed to sufficiently condemn priests having sex with Male teens and he has close to vaporized. I did not agree with him on some things, but his voice was refreshing. I found him alot like Bill Maher – though less smug and pseudo intellectual.
He was a political comic exposing the hypocrisy and making fun of his political opposites.
But one slip off the edge of political correctness and he is gone.

I think Sinema is in serious trouble – but I think this was inevitable.

Her past is much more left than she claims to be at the moment. She sold herself as a moderate, as a bridge, and being able to work with republicans – she HAD TO, as AZ is a pink state. She had to long ago in the campaign pre-emptively address her past racicalism, disown it and explain how and why she changed.

People DO Change.
People also pretend to be what they think they need to be to get elected.
And being found inauthentic is the kiss of death to a candidate.

Sienama may not be so tarniished as ODonnel – though I am not sure the allegations are not sufficiently close that she should be. but I think she has lost – barring catching McSally in bed with a 13yr old girl – and even that might not be enough.

What is different is that ODonnell was permanently finished.
Sienama will be back.

Associateing with witches is more acceptable for democrats than republicans.
Democrats do not have standards.

Further when a republican does something strange – they are crazy, nuts, bi-polar disturbed – witness how the media iis painting Kanye.

Kanye West – who has received as much critical acclaim as Dylan, who was a darling of the media and entertainment industries – until he made Trump friendly remarks – this person is mentally disturbed sufficiently that he is just a few missed pills short of homeless and on the streets. Huh ?

I do not place a lot of weight in the political expression of Celebrities.
I can like their music or performances and ignore their politics.

I think Deniro and Streep are incredible actors – and I will likely see anything they do.

But Deniro just aparently went on a rant that included explicit references to overthrowing the government at a recent public appearance.

I am not hearing half the media pontificate on whether he needs to adjust his meds.

Why ? Because when someone on the left does something crazy – it is justified – because the world is crazy, because well, …. Republicans. When someone on the right behaves similarly – they are racist, or crazy or slapped with some other label that demands disregarding them forwever.

Ron, come on. That article says nothing. White if you look white and don’t claim any Indian blood. So what?
BTW: Obama is 1/2 white so 100 years ago, if he killed an Indian would they say he was white or he was black. Obviously his color would prevail in that case.

dduck, I made a comment concerning idoitic statements after a post by grump made about candidate stupid comments. I referenced witch statements by Odonnell and Dave commented that Democrats might want to avoid witch comments based on something Senima (AZ) said about witches. I then found this article about Warrens ancestral claims and made that comment about avoiding that also.

I was thinking when you claim you are indian and the best is 1/128th then some political marketing guru would make hay with political ads against her and that newspaper article would be in that 30 second ad to lend proof to their message.The best that one can find is scientific proof that there are indian markers and one scientist said maybe 8 generations ago, that would be 1/128 (if EW is counted as 1) or 1/256(If EW parents are counted as 1).

All that matters is that Warrens claim to be cherokee is without any reasonable basis.
I beleive the DNA tests demonstrate that Warren has 1/2 the indian DNA of the average white person – i.e. she is WHITER that I AM.
And that any connection between her and any indians – probably not cherokee is atleast 6 and as much as 10 genations in the past. That is a long long time.
I think I can trace my family to my great-great-great-great-great grandfather. He was a union calalry captian in the civil war. But I have no clue who he married or almost anything else about his life. I do not credibly beleiive Warren does either.

So who is monitoring and billing the Trump campaign for all these flights?
Surely since the Trump WH has not filled many, many positions, in government (yes judges that the Dems oppose too) it must be a daunting job, oh unless that WH just tells them, which are WH business or campaign related. Yeh, that’s probably the way it’s done.

I mean, if you can’t trust what the head of a country, say, for instance SA when they flatly say something like an assassination did not take place or like Putin denying any election interference at that conference, who can you trust.

And, I ain’t boofing. You can look it up. (It has to do with kayaking in 1982).

There are pretty rigid rules on this and there have been since atleast the 70’s.

Whereever Trump travels for whatever reasons the resources necescary for him to continue to function as president are paid for byt he US government.
While all aspects that are political – campaign related are covered by the presidents political party. Even the cost of AF1 for the trip is covered by the party. I beleive that even the cost of the secret service is prorated and partly charged to the party.

Trump does not personally have anything to do with this. Much of it is worked out by the permanent whitehouse staff – not political appointees.

With respect to SA – we have an allegation – one that appears to be reasonably strong.
We need more than that before we should act.

You are constantly telling me that Trump is incautious, imprudent.

Yet in every instance were he says “if” or delays condemnation waiting for evidence rather than allegation – then you whig out.

I am upset with Trump over the strikes against Syria in respons to the recent chemical weapons attack. The evidence is NOT sufficiently strong that an actual chemical weapons attack occured, there is a fair amount of evidence that the entire thing was faked, no credible organization has investigated and found actual victims, the video has a fairly small number of people showing the wrong symptoms – and on and on.

But Trump;s retaliation was very real. People died.
The fact that Assad is not a good guy – is not justification for killing people without being sure you are right.

Lets say that the US gets evidence that the kidnappers/murders are on a plane to SA, and no innocents are on board – and we destroy that plane.

Is the evidence we have at this time sufficient to justify that action ?

If you can not answer yes, then you can not fault Trump for qualifying his condemnation.
Which is already great enough to wreak havoc on mideastern markets and raise the spector of an oil embargo and skyrocketing oil prices – that is not happening, but that doesn’t prevent speculation.

SA has already been severely harmed by this. LEts hope they are actually guilty of something .

Ron, I don’t like Warren, and I don’t like this stupid rule giving advantages to people because they have some genetic background other than being obviously white.
How warren could secure an advantage is not what I would like. I sorta think SOME people should get a little break entering college but am not firm on that.

The world is unfair, and I’m glad that in NYC I was, as a poor kid, could get into CUNY. I think now the costs have gone up substantially, but you still get a worthwhile cost break.

However, I don’t know if the educational quality is as good as when I attended in 1957.

dduck couple of comments.
1. When I made that comment about Warren, I really was not trying to begin a conversation about her. (I think if we are both around in 2020 during the election, we will have lots to say about her then)
2. I agree with everything you said about education. I had the same experience in California when attending a state college for not much more than the cost of books. ( And that was in 1964-1968.
3. The same thing that screwed healthcare cost in this country also screwed educational cost. Since the 1978, the cost of living has increased about 400%. Healthcare has increased 600% and college education costs have increased 1120%. The two things that healthcare and education have in common is the involvement of government in reimbursement for both. There was no incentive for healthcare providers to control cost for much of my career in hospital financial management since the government paid for 50%+ of our cost without asking questions. In education, the government is guaranteeing loans for students at lower interest rates for most of those years between 1978 to 2018. If the students had easy money, what incentive did universities have to control costs? And what incentive did students have to work and pay for part of their education when they could get good cheap money easy?The same incentive as healthcare providers. None. So here we are with a crisis looming in both and the government, which screwed up the system to begin with, is trying to insert itself further into the system which is only going to mess it up further. Like I said many times, the problem we have with healthcare is not the reimbursement system, it is in the roots of the healthcare system and that is the government. Same with education. And when I reference government in this case it is the feds thinking Washington can cure anything. The only thing Washington can do well is screw up a wet dream.

Government guaranteed student loans did absolutely nothing except increase the cost of education and saddle graduates with debt.

Qualiity has declined – and all of that money has been put into administration.
The ratio of students to professors has increased. Full Professors are nearly extinct, Colleges rely nearly completely on associates and adjuncts. But the ration of administrators to students and increased dramatically.

This is exactly what you get when management has money to spend and nothing to account for. Similar things happen in private industry under the same circumstances.

One of the most critical features of the free market is that it incentiivizes all the things we want. And punishes what we do not.

The student loan business is a total racket. Colleges get billions of dollars, lenders are subsidized by the government, so they have nothing to lose.
Students are loaded up with tens of thousands in non-dischargeable debt, which many of them will never be able to pay off. If they default, the government will garnish their wages, seize their income tax refunds, and in some cases, take away their drivers licenses.

The student loan debt bubble is over a trillion $….and taxpayers are basically on the hook for all of it, if it bursts.

There is plenty of economic literature demonstrating that if you subsidize something you do NOT reduce the cost, the amount of the subsidy gets added to the cost and profits or expenses increase to consume the subsidy.

Education is just a glaring demonstration of that.
Government guaranteed student loans have done nothing except increase the cost of education and saddle students with debt.

They provide no benefit to poor people, and in fact are harmful.

We should not expect diifferently – look at public education.
It costs as much for a student in publiic school as one in excellent private schools.
It costs as much in places liike DC or NYC as the very best private boarding schools in the country. Public school in my community costs nearly 3 times what the equivalent private catholic school does. A bit over half what good local private schools do, and about the same as a local elite private school with a national reputation.

Eliminate my school taxes and I could have afforded to send my kids to very good private schools for the same money. Only school costs are for 12 years. School taxes are for a lifetime.

The explosive increases in price that we have seen in healthcare and education have never occured without government involvement. Free markets can not sustain explosive long term price increases. In fact in a truly free market a short term price spike is nearly always followed by a complete collapse in prices usually to a price lower than before.

Even if I can not persuade you that a priori regulation is a bad idea. There are no examples of government involvement is prices – subsidies, etc. that do not end very badly.
When government involves itself in prices in almost anyway, it radically distorts incentives, and normal market self regulation of prices just does not work anymore.

Government – and ONLY government must be absolutely blind to race, …..

In every other arena people are free to make choices as they wish – ncluding bad ones, iincluding racist ones, so long as they do not use force aganst others, keep any binding commitments they make, and do not actually harm others.

If Harvard wants to diiscrimiinate against asians – that is NOT the business of government. It is the business of alumni, and students and those who wish to protest or boycott harvard.

As the left culture of intercestionality increases t will become impossible to make ANY decisisons.

If you have one slot who gets it – the disabled indian woman or the transgendered black ?
You would need computer programs to make choices to acheive “fair”
And that is just dealing with mostly immutable traits – what about things that are not traits – do we need to demographically balance for economic advantage ? How do we measure all of this ? Further we know that IQ is the strongest predicator of success we have – if we deliberately choose a student body that is more diverse but of lower average IQ – we are harming society as a whole, we are reducing our future success.

Decisions like these DO NOT belong in the hands of government.
We know where this road ends – see nazi germany.
It does not matter what set of traits you characterize as deserving preference – iif you make that decision within government you will slowly move towards evil.

“Idaho’s Fish and Game commissioner Blake Fischer resigned Monday after facing backlash for sharing photos he took with animals he killed during an African hunting trip.

Fischer said in his resignation letter to Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter (R) that he “made some poor judgments.”

“I recently made some poor judgments that resulted in sharing photos of a hunt in which I did not display an appropriate level of sportsmanship and respect for the animals I harvested. While these actions were out of character for me, I fully accept responsibility and feel it is best for the citizens of Idaho and sportsmen and women that I resign my post,” Fischer wrote in the letter.”

As a kid I hunted rabbits and ground hogs with a bow and arrow – am I permanenty barred from public office ? I never caught any does that let me off the hook ?
I really like veal – I guess I am back on the hook.

“As a kid I hunted rabbits and ground hogs with a bow and arrow – am I permanenty barred from public office ? ”

Had you posted pictures of dead rabbits and ground hogs like people do today, yes you would be barred due to others being offended that you would kill rabbits and ground hogs. Snowflake live and let live.

As a serious comment, I dont think anyone, especially government officials, that are dumb enough to post pictures on social media that are anything but someone in a family, friend or scenic background picture are smart enough to be in a government job. How many times does one have to hear that a person posted something on social media and there was massive backlash that caused that person a problem to realize social media is not your friend.

Did this guy not think the anti-hunting population was not going to go bat shit crazy when he posted pictures of dead animals? Had he posted pictures from a hunt in the states with dead Bambi , someone would have lost their mind over that also.

But in this day and age where everyone is so self centered and pictures of your meal is thought to be of interest of others, not posting pictures like this will cause extreme SMW syndrome (Social Media Withdrawal) resulting in tremors and severe sweats.

“Had he posted pictures from a hunt in the states with dead Bambi, someone would have lost their mind over that also.”

I have almost never met anyone like that, but they must exist somewhere, everything does. Vermont is the most liberal state in the union and its also one where hunting is quite a big deal, deer, moose, bear, there is a bounty on coyotes. None of the liberals seem to be having any problem with any of it other than a few objections to moose hunting on the grounds that it consists of walking up to a moose from a few yards away and blasting it to kingdom come. But almost everyone understands that you can’t have moose rambling all over the roads.

The idaho hunters, who were board members and a former commissioner calling for this commissioner to resign, were they snowflakes losing their shit? Idaho gun owner/hunting snowflakes? They seemed to be sincerely disgusted. At some point overuse of the word snowflake makes the word meaningless.

Actually, the one thing that does get objected to in Vermont is people coming right into your front yard to hunt or even to shoot a deer right in front of you, which can and does happen if you have not posted your land, some hunters lack any common sense. I was under the dash of my car once changing a fuse and I looked up and there were two hunters 50 feet away on my lawn. Well, my land wasn’t posted so they thought they had the right. Can I go and do whatever I damn please on Their front lawn since they don’t have a sign, maybe do an oil change or something?

And about once a year, a hunter shoots some person, often a relative, usually fatally, because they thought it was a deer. And they never get punished by the court system much. That makes people a bit cross. Damn snowflakes.

Not sure what other animals he killed, but I would bet if you searched google you would find safaris that targeted those animals also. In addition, searching objections to deer hunting provides a few sites that object to that and any hunting. Did not read any, just looked for sites.

But the issue goes back to my social media comment. If the picture is not food or pictures other than family or scenic, share them on e-mail to close friends only that you know wont share with anyone else. Putting stuff on social media is insane.

Yes, some hunters are assholes and they are becoming more common. All of our property is posted and that does not always help. But we dont have too many locals coming on without permission due to my wifes father years ago. He had high-powered rifles. Not sure the caliber, but the cartridge was quite large. Sounded like cannons. The property slopes down to a creek where the deer migrate and the hunters took up residence, then slopes back up a high hill, totally covered in trees. That area was used for target shooting, clay pigeon shooting, etc. Well when he took those guns out and started firing about 30-40 ft above hunters illegally on the property and they heard those winging overhead, it did not take long for the word to get around to stay off Xxx’s property or you’ll get shot. My brother-in-law still target shoots (AR-15, high capacity clips), so the word is still around and locals stay off. Its the town folk that think they can do whatever they want that gets the crap scared out if them when they are where they should not be. They are surprised that some people are still protective of open property.

“So people are no longer free to use their own personal social media n ways that might offend others ?”

People are free to use it however they want.
Other people with access are free to react in whatever manner they believe is right.
Employers are free to react to people reacting to the social media posts.
Employer are free to terminate employment of employees causing negative views of the employer.
Employees terminated are free to hire legal advice on how to get job back.

In this case, this individual represented the state in concerns of wildlife preservation. The actions were unacceptable to many based on American norms and the state found the reaction of many brought negative coverage to the division he headed and most likely told him he would be terminated if he did not resign.

He exercised his freedoms
People exercised their freedoms
His bosses exercised their freedoms.
State HR policies were enforced
He resigned.
He is free to appeal, with or without legal action.

Game is things you hunt. “Wildlife preservation” is secondary – both in terms of a “Game commission” and even in terms of government overall.

The objectiive of humans is what is best for humans.
Wildlife preservation is important because:
It might be important to human survival.
It is something humans choose to value.

We have deliberately chosen to elimnate Small Pox fromt he face of the earth – we certainly are not “preserving it.” We are trying to do the same with other diseases like polio.

We have the technology today to completely eliminate mosquito and Tse Tse fly born diseases. Doing so requires the complete eradication of Tse Tse flies and several species of mosquitoes. We have genetic technology to do so. Thus far we have chosen not to – primarily because of uncertainty about the side effects.
And it feels like “playing god”
But we are playing god when we dam a river or build a house.

This is overall not that important to me – except pointing out the incongruities.

In fact I have absolutely ZERO problems with people protesting anyone in any political office for any reason at all – even reasons I think are stupid.

That said much of what we beleive about “the environment” is complete claptrap.

There is no aspect of human knowledge that iis self evidently more ill informed, and full of more garbage science, or where people continue to believe nonsense that was long ago refuted.

Malthus dead for centuries still quickly recognized the error of his ways, but the modern left and environmentalist have not.

The stossel video I linked only includes a few of the well established environmentalist nonsense. Though it is pretty good at demonstrating that environmentalism is a religion.
The goal is NOT to preserve the environment. It is to inflict by force specific values and a way of life on people.

There are myriads of examples of this – but Stossel’s video hits two that are Rhinocerous based.

It is now possible to synthesixe Rhino horn that can not be distinguished from the real thing.
We can then flood the market, destroy the value of rhino horn which will make it no longer cost effective to poach Rhino’s

But the left hates this idea. Their real objective is NOT to save Rhino’s
It is to change people.

We see the same in myriads of areas.
Allowing private ownership of Rhino’s iin South Africa – brought several Rhino’s back from near extinction – but “environmentalists” do not want Rhino’s as a source of products for humans – even if that assures the survival of Rhino’s.

Can you name a single animal tat humans are free to own, that produces something we value that faces extincion ? Of course not.

Ronald Coase was not thinking species facing extinction when he worked out coases law.

Coases Law states that:

If something can be traded.
If there are strong property rights.
If transaction costs are sufficiently low
Free Markets will lead to Pareto Efficientcy – basically the optimal outcome where any change will result in a net decrease in total satisfaction.

And that this is true REGARDLESS of the initial allocation.

Coases law says many many things.
It says the best results for “wildlife preservation” is private ownership and unrestricted trade.

It also says that “income inequality” is nonsense – or better put that the satisfaction maximizing distribution of wealth, income, …. will occur with the rule of law, and otherwise government staying completely out of it.

Dave, I dont give a hoot if the guy got fired, resigned or left for whatever reason. He was free to do what he did and the state was free to do what they wanted to do following any legal and approved state policies.

I never said people were not free to post any crap they wanted.

What I did say, which I will modify slightly since I dont want to go through all the comments to find the original, is anything but benign fully clothed family or scenic.pictures are pictures someone may get all bent out of shape over. Once there are enough upset people seeing the pictures, then there are consequences. This man felt those consequences.

I then mentioned something about stupidity. If you are stupid enough to post something on social media knowing that something can set off an avalanche of criticism by others for any reason, then that stupidity should preclude you from government service.

I dont think he should have resigned for shooting baboons. Whatever their age. They are worse than coyotes that we have here because they are in much more aggressive toward humans.

When you start claiming that Trump has made things so much worse and start citing statistics – you should keep incidents such as this in mind

The Data from the NYC Human Relations commission has seen a huge jump in accusations of racial or discriminatory conduct. It has NOT seen an increase and prosecutions – because nearly all the increase is false reports.

“The Proud Boys are a violent, ultra-nationalist group that promotes anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and anti-woman views. Although the group officially rejects white supremacy, members have nonetheless appeared at multiple racist events, with a former Proud Boy organizing the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. The group rallies around anti-left violence, and members of Proud Boy chapters in the Pacific Northwest have participated in public marches while wearing shirts that glorify the murders of leftists by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Previous McInnes speeches in New York have been marked by violence. In February 2017, New York University’s College Republican club invited McInnes to speak on campus, and 11 people were arrested in fights outside the event, including Proud Boy Salvatore Cipolla, who attacked a journalist covering the event.
McInnes frequently champions violence, particularly against the left.
“I want violence, I want punching in the face. I’m disappointed in Trump supporters for not punching enough,” McInnes said on his webshow.
On another occasion, he called for an attack on a woman.
“This woman—yes, I’m advocating violence against women—this woman should be punched in the face. Shouldn’t be by a man, maybe by another woman, her twin sister, should just punch her in the face. Or maybe mace her. Yeah. I’m pro-free speech, I don’t want her ever to be censored, but this woman needs to experience a little bit of violence.”
McInnes also uses his show to spout racial slurs, especially the n-word, and call for attacks on transgender people. “Choke a tranny. Get your fingers around the windpipe,” McInnes said on his show, according to Newsweek. A self-described misogynist, McInnes has argued against women in the workforce and claimed sexual harassment does not exist.”

OK, Fine, these are people Republicans Should be inviting to speak. Seems they have a message that is interesting and pertinent to their members.

And they should find as many whiter than white right wing blonder than blonds with chainsaw rhetoric, racist humor, and conspiracy theories a la Housley, Ingraham, Coulter, Kelli Ward, and on and on to be their candidates and spokespeople and news anchors. Then they should complain about being labeled.

That should be easy to establish – have they been charged by the police ?
Is there video of them starting an attack ?
In fact is there video of ANY no-left GROUP attacking anybody ?

Words have meaning. Just saying somethiing does nto make it the truth.

“Anti-muslims” – based on what ?
That trope is hung arround the necks of any group that opposes female genital mutilation or restrictions on immigration from countries with problems with islamic terrorism.
The Southern Poverty LAw Center iis the normal source for such claims and they just lost a multi-million dollar law suite because they defamed someone and “anti-islam”

“Anti-immigrant” – that appears to be true – they want to end or severely reduce immigration.
They openly say this on their web site. That is good reason to beleive what they say about themselves above what others say about them – particularly when they “others” are overreaching
II do not agree with that. But it s a view help by much, possibly most of the country.

“anti-woman” – don’t know – and I doubt your cite does either. Their website does not support this. But it does support the claim that they atleast argue that people who wish to relate in traditional gender roles should be tolerated.

We have debated Charlotte repeated. James Field is mentally disturbed.

Beyond Fields paniced flight, and Heather Heyer’s heart attack, the Charlotteville march reflects badly on the LEFT – not the marchers.

I do not share the values of those marching.
But even actual nazi’s shoud be allowed to march.

At Charlottesvlle – the government orded the police to “stand down” as a result left wing nuts broke through police barriers and attacked the marchers.

The markers were well prepared for this and defended themselves effectively without police protection.

It seems in your world view that no one whose views offend you should be allowed to march and speak. that the police should only protect people that you agree with.

While some of your “facts” about PB appear to be wrong or just oppinions without foundation,

It would not matter whether you were right or not.

People on the extreme left should be free to walk the streets to organize marches to got to meetings without being physically assaulted.

You seem to be arguing that if someone offends you enough they are no longer entitled to the protection fo the law, that the social contract does not apply to them, and that you are free to initiate violence against them merely because you disagree.

I do not think that is really what you beleive – but that is what you are arguing.

More importantly – THAT is the actual argument of the left. And that argument is actually evil, immoral and leads to violence and tyranny.

On another occasion, he called for an attack on a woman.
“This woman—yes, I’m advocating violence against women—this woman should be punched in the face. Shouldn’t be by a man, maybe by another woman, her twin sister, should just punch her in the face. Or maybe mace her. Yeah. I’m pro-free speech, I don’t want her ever to be censored, but this woman needs to experience a little bit of violence.”

Again – this just makes him liike Holder – though I would like the context of this.
Was McInnes advocating violence against a random woman – I doubt that.
A woman who he disagreed wiith ? That makes him Holder.

Or someone who had initiated violence against others ? That makes his remarks advocacy of self defense.

I would further note that so much of the “quotes” we read in the press are wrong or out of context that I am not inclined to beleive something just because you quote it.

All day yesterday Trump’s $1m offer to warren was being quoted – without the “if it proves she is an indian”. I think Trump SHOULD give $1M riight now – I think it would be a brilliant political move. But I think he should giive iit to some group like “the cherokee nation” that has said Warren is NOT indian.

Regardless, my point is the left is constantly miis quoting, quoting out of context, or ediiting quotes, and that often significantly changes their meaning.

McInnes is certainly not someone I want as a friend. Maybe he is as your quites paint him,
though I take that with a large grain of salt.

He still should be free to go places without being physically assaulted
And you completely fail to grasp that.

“McInnes also uses his show to spout racial slurs, especially the n-word, and call for attacks on transgender people. “Choke a tranny. Get your fingers around the windpipe,” McInnes said on his show, according to Newsweek. A self-described misogynist, McInnes has argued against women in the workforce and claimed sexual harassment does not exist.”

I guess I have to accept your word that these things are true. Though relying on the press for accurate reporting on anyone on the right is stupid today.

Again – this does not change whether he should be able to walk the streets without being attacked.

“OK, Fine, these are people Republicans Should be inviting to speak. Seems they have a message that is interesting and pertinent to their members.”

It is my understanding that McInnes attended an event that was a presentation about a specific historical occurance during WWII which McInnes has a great deal of interest and possibly knowledge.

I have read nothing about whether he was “invited” or “invited to speak” or even whether there was any speaking per say.

Based on the news which we have to take with a grain of salt – he showed up at a public meeting on a topic of interest to him.

This could be inaccurate – but I have heard nothing to establish clearly that McInnes was invited to speak.

“And they should find as many whiter than white right wing blonder than blonds with chainsaw rhetoric, racist humor, and conspiracy theories a la Housley, Ingraham, Coulter, Kelli Ward, and on and on to be their candidates and spokespeople and news anchors. Then they should complain about being labeled.”

If they are being labeled inaccurately – they have every right to complain.

There is no doubt that McInnes is not someone I would endorse – neither is Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren – and yet democrats “invite” them to speak all the time.

Neither party is run especially well.
But the Democratic PARTY is the one advocating violence.
There is a gigantic gulf between McInnns and Holder or Waters, or Maddona, or Depp, or DeNiro. Further no one is physically attacking democrats inciiting violence. No one iis diisrupting them in their homes, or as they eat.

If someone hunts to eat, fine. Hunts coyotes that endanger their pets and maybe children, also fine. Goes to africa to kill animals by the family just because they love to kill, to destroy life, then that is different. Did Africa have a Giraffe problem as well and a water buffalo problem etc.? What that asshole Idaho Game commissioner did was so far from sporting or necessary that even a unanimous group and Idaho hunters/members of the game commision thought it was grotesque and that he should resign. And he did. Great.

I’d worry about having someone with such a violent need to kill around.

TR. I read his biography this year and was stunned by the energy, intellect, and determination of the man. I was also appalled by his bloody need to kill animals by the thousands for sport and go to war for sport to kill people just for the physical joy of it, that side of his character is repulsive to me. Mark Twain was with me on that one.

Twain had a problem with TR because of his violence towards brown skinned HUMANS

Regardless I used TR speciifically because he was PROGRESSIVE.

If we barred from government everyone who did something that offended someone else,
we would have no government.

Just to be clear – I am not defending this guy – I do not know him – and neither do you, and neither does the media.

I am attacking this stupid narrative what we should all be outraged over some small fact taken out of context.

I am attacking what is a COMMON technique of the left – the politics of outrage.

This is unfortunately a very effective tool.

My guess is this guy SHOULD be a game commissioner – specifically BECAUSE he resigned.

But that is a guess. I do not know the facts – nor do you. And I know that the media is just giving us a tiny portion – just enough to make us angry. And that is the problem.
And that is why the media is owned by the left, and that too is a problem.

I’m going right now to the TR townhouse on E. 20th St., and throw bricks at it. You should not give a gun to a NYC kid and expect him to act properly, like defending his life or protecting his Mom from people wanting to pinch her ass.
Seriously, these were different times, and didn’t we get rid of all those pesky carrier pigeons and “roaming’ buffalos have been limited. Now we just kill 83 black bears or so in NJ and a few garden destroying deer here and there.
Really seriously, it ain’t what you do it’s how you do it, whether posing with baby animals you have killed or bragging about pussy you have grabbed.

Really, really seriously, not all hunters are bad, and they used to have to eat what they hunted or starve.

Avoid veal and products where animals are densely cooped up under disgusting conditions or become a vegan.

dduck, there are few animal products you can eat today that the animals are not raised in inhumane conditions. Other than cattle raised on ranches, anything else is raised in conditions that should be unacceptible. Chickens for eggs cooped up in cages, hogs raised with just a few sq ft of space, etc. And the when cattle go to slaughter, dont discuss that process with the weak of heart. Few producers are interested in raising food in acceptable conditions.

Now the Idaho hunter shot baboon families. In that part of the world, they want that. They want baboons gone. Big, small, they are a health issue, dangerous and a pest. Like coyotes here. The garaffe hunts take the animal, skin it for the hide, the meat is processed, some goes to resturants, some to market and some to locals. Little goes to waste as in Africa, they find a way to use most of it. Same with any big game for the most part.

Everything this guy did was acceptable under African norms. Under American acceptable behaviors, it was not.

This is for those that are swift of mind: “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child, well nursed, is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally…”

From the post it appears that all big game hunting results in meat that is eaten by someone.
So the argument that this hunting is pure sport is false.

I am hard pressed to think of an animal that we eat that is endangered or has gone extinct.
In fact the opposite tends to be true. Buffalo were brought back from near extinction and now their meat is avaiable in many grocery stores.

Gavin McInnes was invited by the Republican club. Its their choice, but like all things political its a choice that will be fair play for comment and opinion. I’d say that this was a revealingly bad choice. If I were the democrats I would use this story for all its worth. Likewise If I were the republicans I would use the Middlebury riot and the Dartmouth BLM library invasion for all they are worth. These events mean something important about the groups who were involved.

“New York’s Republicans are divided on whether or not it was a good idea to invite Gavin McInnes and his frequently violent gang of Proud Boys to the Metropolitan Republican Club, after the appearance sparked street clashes between protesters and the far right hate group in the Upper East Side on Friday night.
After initially blaming the violence on “radical leftists,” GOP gubernatorial candidate Marc Molinaro acknowledged in an interview with the Daily News on Tuesday that he is “a bit ashamed” by the Metropolitan Republican Club’s decision to invite McInnes. Molinaro—who uses the Metropolitan Club as his campaign headquarters—accused McInnes of inciting violence, adding that “the institution was wrong [to invite him] and I think we were wrong not to call it out for what it is.”
In addition to espousing racist, misogynistic and Islamophobic views, McInnes has repeatedly encouraged members of his group to commit violence, and bestows the highest rankings on Proud Boys who have beat up left wing protesters. He was initially invited to the Republican club to perform a skit depicting the killing of Japanese socialist Inejiro Asanuma, whose murder on live television in 1960 is considered an “inspiring moment” by the Proud Boys founder.
Other GOP leaders, meanwhile, have been far less willing to distance themselves from the Proud Boys’ brand of belligerent ultranationalism. A state Republican party spokesperson, Jessica Proud, told Gothamist, “we condemned ALL political violence and the views of McInnes. Antifa is by no means an innocent party here.” For the most part, Ed Cox, Chairman of the state GOP, has directed his anger toward Governor Andrew Cuomo’s perceived indifference about the vandalism of the club.

The Metropolitan Republican Club has stood perhaps most forcefully behind McInnes and the Proud Boys. On Sunday, the group put out a statement touting their support for free speech, adding that “Gavin’s talk on Friday night, while at times politically incorrect and a bit edgy, was certainly not inciting violence.”
Members of the club have also come to the defense of McInnes’s First Amendment rights—defined, in this case, as his right to reenact a political assassination in front of a paying audience at the New York City Republican headquarters. During a press conference held by City Council Speaker Corey Johnson on Monday, an irate state Senate candidate and Metropolitan Club member, Pete Holmberg, interrupted Johnson to declare, “I hate Gavin McInnes, but I will defend his right to speak! That’s the First Amendment, Corey.”
While both Cox and Molinaro have stressed that it was the Metropolitan Club’s decision to invite McInnes, the close connection between the club and the GOP establishment has continued to generate controversy for local Republicans. On Tuesday, Bklyner revealed that Ian Reilly, Executive Committee Chair of the club, also works for state Senator Marty Golden’s reelection campaign. Reilly previously defended the decision to bring McInnes to the club, telling Gothamist last week—before the event—that he had no misgivings about the invitation because the Proud Boys founder is “part of the right.”
Asked whether the campaign took any issue with Reilly’s support for McInnes, a spokesperson for Golden’s office said they were not concerned.
“Ian Reilly is the Campaign’s Office Manager, and will continue to serve in that role, as he has capably and professionally for several months,” said Michael Tobman, a campaign spokesperson. “He is also Executive Committee Chair of the Metropolitan Republican Club, an old & distinguished political club. Mayors, Governors, and Presidents have been active in the institution. Ian is also, and has proven himself time and time again, my friend.””

“Gavin McInnes was invited by the Republican club. Its their choice, ”
That is likely true – but we do not at this time actually know that.
We know there was an event about WWII and Japan and that GM attended.

“but like all things political its a choice that will be fair play for comment and opinion.”
That would be true – iif we knew it.

It is relevant to evaluatng the Manhattan Republican Club.
It is not relevant with regard to the actions of those outside the club.

“I’d say that this was a revealingly bad choice.”
Not especially. I would likely go to hear GM. Just as I would likely go to hear Ocasio-Cortez.

I do NOT expect that only people with uncontroversial views should ever be provided a forum.

“If I were the democrats I would use this story for all its worth.”
I would too – but it is not worth much – unless you are one of these safe space left wng nbuts who beleives that no views challengng your own should ever be expressed.

“Likewise If I were the republicans I would use the Middlebury riot and the Dartmouth BLM library invasion for all they are worth.”
Absolutely – and those are worth more.
In fact ALL these events have a common theme – the left being willing to use ANY MEANS NECESCARY to silence those they do not wish to hear.

That is even the message you completely miss from Charlottesvlle.
Which is actually worse – because we are dealing wth a public forum which GOVERNMENT proviided, and GOVERNMENT may not discriminate against viiewpoints – as Middlebury and Dartmouth,, and the MRC can.

You can as an example pass judgement on Middlebury for invting Murray, or MRC for nviting GM – if they did.

But the unte the right groups had an absolute right to speak at the government provded forum at Charlotesvlle.

The failure to protect the marchers, the failure to allow them to speak are GOVERNMENT VIOLATIONS of their first amendment rights.
Worse those choices appear to have been DELIBERATE.
Government was obligated to protect the marchers and allow them to speak even iif they were surprised by the crowds etc. But WORSE they expected trouble and the police were ordered to STAND DOWN.

“These events mean something important about the groups who were involved.”
Maybe – but that meaning is relatively small.

The meaning of consequence was that the left will resort to ANY MEANS NECESCARY – including violence to silence those they do not like.

Absolutely you can find a few similar instance regarding the right, but they are small and rare, and more frequently than not misrepresented.

Trump was wrong to hint that crows should respond to violent hecklers with more violence.
Particularly when security was present.
But advocating for what is iinherently imperfect self defence or even matchiing violence wiith even more violence iis NOT the same as initiating violence.

Even at Charlottesville – the Tikki torch march the night before was done deliberately to rile the left – in the hope and expectation they would turn violent the next day.

That is NOT moral – but it IS legal.

And the next day the left did respond with violence.

Had the police done their jobs – the left would have had to cross manned pliice lines to get at the marchers. Instead the police “stood down” the barriers were iin place but there was no one to prevent the left from breachng them – which they did and attacking the marchers.

During the entire march and subsequent retreat I have not see a single video of clashes between marchers and the left that was not taking place inside of the barriers defining the march route. I have not seen any video of any of these alt-right groups crossing the barricades.

In fact the only thing that appears to have kept things from getting even worse was the presence of the ARMED New York Millitia, which for a significant portion of the march got between the left and the marchers doing the job the police should have done.
The left seemed less inclined to cross barriers to start conflict with marchers carrying AR-15’s.

“In addition to espousing racist, misogynistic and Islamophobic views, McInnes has repeatedly encouraged members of his group to commit violence, and bestows the highest rankings on Proud Boys who have beat up left wing protesters. ”

You and others keep repeating this – but you have STILL not actually established it.
Something is not a fact – just because it is said.
You may even succeed at demonstrating this – but you must do more than just assert it.

Celebrating western culture is NOT racism.
Opposing immigration is NOT racism.
Celebrating traditional gender roles iis NOT racism.
Criticising Islamic terrorism is NOT islamophbia.

You need to demonstrate that McInnes has encouraged his members to INIITIATE violence.

Otherwise his remarks are no different from Obama’s “If they bring a knife we bring a gun”
I am uncomfortable with Obama’s remarks. But Absent demonstration actual inciitement to violence – and taunting the other side – though WRONG is not illegal, and is not incitement to violence.

Just to be clear – you can demonstrate that GM is a thoroughly repugnant person – something you have thus far faiiled. That STILL makes the problem with Antifa, as they not only initiated the violence – they are open about having done so.

While you have not established that GM is a racist, mysoginist, islamophobe,
If you actually managed – that is NOT sufficient.

The right to self defense, as well as the criminality of initiating violence against others are BOTH core american values. In fact they are core requirements for civilization and the rule of law.

We can get by in a society where people are racist, misogynist, and islamophobic.
We can not survive where that is a justification for inciting violence.

This is not a contest of who is the better person who is closer to the angels.

If you initiate violence against another – you are in the wrong.
There is no acceptable justification for private violence except self defense.
NONE!!!!!!

There is no “punch Nazi’s” exception to the rule of law.

“Other GOP leaders, meanwhile, have been far less willing to distance themselves from the Proud Boys’ brand of belligerent ultranationalism.”

This is more leftist claptrap. It is all tangential garbage.

It is all YOUR stupid nonsense that somehow the violence of the left can be justified by someone else’s beleifs. That is not merely immoral – it is also illegal.

This garbage comes directly from the communist playbook.
Attack your enemy for their failure to “denounce” whatever your favorite villian of the moment is.

It is stupid and it is WRONG.

We each get to chose what issues are important to us at the moment.
The world is full of evils of various scales.

One is not iinherently evil, if in the past few minutes you have not denounced some other group that your opponent has labeled as evil.

If they did so against Jeffrey Dahmer – THEY are still responsible.
You can not escape responsibility for violent acts, because the person you targeted was offensive.

Antifa is not merely “by no means the innocent party”

They are the ONLY guilty party.

McInnes words are an entirely differnet matter and iinconsequential with respect to the CRIME that occured.

This garbage about getting a long list of republicans to “denounce” McInnes, is nonsense.

No one needs to “stand behind” McInnes – as noted absent evidence that he or the proud boys initiated the violence – they are IRRELEVANT.

You can not attack Mother Theresa, you can not attack Jeffrey Dahmer.

Even if GM “incited violence” – those who acted, are still responsible.
Further legally “inciting violence” does NOT mean insulting your opponents until they respond with violence. It means exhorting your supporters to ATTACK FIRST.

““Gavin McInnes was invited by the Republican club. Its their choice, ”
That is likely true – but we do not at this time actually know that.
We know there was an event about WWII and Japan and that GM attended.

“but like all things political its a choice that will be fair play for comment and opinion.”
That would be true – iif we knew it.

Dave, we ain’t lookin for the freakin Principia Mathematica of Bertrand Russell here, we do not need several hundred pages to put 1+1 +2 on a firm foundation. The Republican Club has stated that they invited him.

As to the rest of your typing project, “Wasted words, never been heard.”

BTW your “i” key has been sticking for quite a while know, which is pretty wonderfully ironic.

Grump – much of what you claim to “know” or “has been stated” – is indirect references in media articles. The typical reporters accuracy in language is worse than that of Trump’s tweets – we have lots of evidence of that.

While some of the things I addressed are nits – and likely will be confirmed.
Still only an idiot today takes anything n the media at face value.

Unless the media actually quotes someone – and even then the person who actually makes the decsions – it is near certaiin that what s beng reported is an impression of the facts – not the actual facts – in other words it is true in the same way Trump Tweets are true.
In the event the media quotes someone – it is near certain that the quote is out of context and partial.

As an example half the quotes yesterday about Trump’s offer of a $1m bet with Warren omtted the part were Trump said – “and the test proves she is indian”

You can treat that however you wish. In my oppinion that is deliiberately deceptive.

So if you do not “get it” I as well as a significant and increasing portion of the public does not accept anything n the news uncritically. What is supposed to be straght reporting today should be read as an oppinion peice. It usually takes mulitple sources from dfferent perspectives to get to the truth.

Dave makes some excellent points, the most important of which is that McInnis is entitled to say whatever he wants, unless he is specifically inciting violence. I think that, while he has repeatedly encouraged the Proud Boys to stand their ground, I haven’t seen evidence of incitement to violence. Proud Boys are a group that insists that white men are not the enemy and that the West, specifically the US, has created a superior culture. They are chauvinists in the true sense ( chau·vin·ism/ˈSHōvəˌnizəm/: 1. exaggerated or aggressive patriotism.”public opinion was easily moved to chauvinism and nationalism”
synonyms: jingoism, excessive patriotism, blind patriotism, excessive nationalism, sectarianism, isolationism, flag-waving; More
2.excessive or prejudiced loyalty or support for one’s own cause, group, or gender.)

So, in my opinion, they are no different than Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, LaRaza, and other identity groups, except that they are made up of the one, single group, that the Marxist idea of intersectionality excludes~ that is, white men.

The problem we face is the intentional, political division of our own culture into groups seeking to be “the oppressed.” You cannot have “oppressed,” without and “oppressor,” and, right now the “oppressors” are WHITE MEN. That’s just the unfortunate place that we find ourselves. If you are a white man, you cannot escape the fact that you are the oppressor, and you can’t be accepted as a friend or ally to the oppressed, unless you accept your privilege.

Intersectionality does not accept individualism. So any “oppressed” person who sides with the “oppressors,” becomes the enemy. We must always believe victims. Due process is a tool of the oppressors.

“I have not seen any evidence of incitement to violence.Proud Boys are a group that insists that white men are not the enemy and that the West, specifically the US, has created a superior culture. ”

Oh, good grief, its worse than I even thought. You have finally graduated, you are the real deal. Now you are as wacky as denial dave, who wrote thousands of words to try to evade the obvious point that McInnes was invited by the Republican club. An excellent point? No, really no. This kind of flat out denial of reality is fascinating in a really creepy kind of way. You two go live in your alternate fact universe together, you can be happy together there. McInness’s own words that I posted could not more clearly be incitement to violence.

“I’ll repost them, so you can go through your weird routine of defending them:

“McInnes frequently champions violence, particularly against the left.
“I want violence, I want punching in the face. I’m disappointed in Trump supporters for not punching enough,” McInnes said on his webshow.
On another occasion, he called for an attack on a woman.
“This woman—yes, I’m advocating violence against women—this woman should be punched in the face. Shouldn’t be by a man, maybe by another woman, her twin sister, should just punch her in the face. Or maybe mace her. Yeah. I’m pro-free speech, I don’t want her ever to be censored, but this woman needs to experience a little bit of violence.”
McInnes also uses his show to spout racial slurs, especially the n-word, and call for attacks on transgender people. “Choke a tranny. Get your fingers around the windpipe,” McInnes said on his show, according to Newsweek. ”

These are McGinness’ own words. They are vile. Denying their meaning is vile. You are vile. Welcome to today’s GOP.

I have had no trouble as a liberal seeing the evil in PC and the actions of college rioters. I have been truly repulsed by the anarchist scumbags of antifa and I want to know why they they are not being effectively rounded up and prosecuted. I am ready to applaud even trump if he would organize that. You two nuts, on the other hand are ready to write an absurd legal brief for the Proud Boys. When their nine violent members from the other night get arrested you and Dave can get together and go bail them out. You won’t find me doing the same for the three anarchists.

You see Priscilla, we are different you and me, two different species and there is no bridge that is going to be ever built between our moral and fact universes.

Wasting words on either of you two true-believing right-wing nut denialists has been my own fault and doing any more of that in the future would be triple my own fault. I feel sorry for both of you.

Now, you are probably going to say that I have lost my shit, how sad and uncalled for. No Priscilla, its you have have lost your shit, your moral compass at all, its been replaced by right wing propaganda, which is now running your universe. You and Dave are going to live out your days like this. Ugg.

Oh, relax, grump, I have not lost my shit. I guess I’ll have to wait until both the far right and the far left cause widespread violence, before I come back and tell you “I told you so.”

My moral compass says that, as long as we provide a platform for leftist violence, while condemning right wing violence, there will continue to be violence on both sides, and that it will get worse. I am no fan of McGinnes, but what he says essentially is, “if you try to crack my skull, I’ll try to crack yours”. It’s a fairly unsurprising response to the kind of mob mentality and rhetoric that we’ve seen from the left. Frightening, but unsurprising. It means that we’re spiraling down.

It’s inevitable that the downward spiral will continue, if we encourage with a primitive tribal approach to political disagreements, instead of openly debating them. It’s the brownshirts and AnTiFa from the 30’s all over again.

I’ve observed that history repeats itself. I’ve observed that people will not sit still forever, if they believe that their rights and freedoms are taken away. I’ve observed that, increasingly we are being told that some people in our country can flaunt the law, while some are not even granted due process. It’s the sans-culottes system of justice, and it does not end well.

And you come back at me and call me immoral, because I say that a toxic Marxist brand of politics underlies this violence, and that toxic nationalism is an inevitable response? Look around the world ~ look at Europe. It’s not just here.

Anyway, I could not care less that you think I’ve “lost my shit.” Don’t read my posts, if you don’t want to be disagreed with.

Pricilla, here is the inciter candidate, now the inciter president. You think some of his supporters might support his remarks, I think some might as there are always “followers” like this McGuiness guy.

That is why top politicians and others with big megaphones need to watch what they say and do. Trump has no indication of having any control over either and since he can turn on a dime (even in the same speech or interview) who can blame some more impressionable people from acting out what they perceive as sanctioned actions.

duck, I totally agree. Trump was a candidate when he did this ~ he was talking about a protestor, and he was wrong to even imply that punching or hitting someone was accceptable.

However, he has not said anything like this since being elected…while elected Democrats have encouraged harrassment and even physical violence in the name of opposition to Trump and his party. I won’t go through the litany of GOP congress people, cabinet members, and staff, who have been threatened , harrassed, and attacked. Rand Paul was on the baseball field when an unhinged Democrat opened fire, and nearly murdered Steve Scalise…and Senator Paul himself was seriously injured by a crazy neighbor who disagreeed with his politics. He has said :

““I fear that there’s going to be an assassination. I really worry that somebody is going to be killed, and that those who are ratcheting up the conversation … they have to realize they bear some responsibility if this elevates to violence.”…
“When people like Cory Booker say get up in their face … What he doesn’t realize is that for every 1,000 persons who want to get up in your face, one of them is going to be unstable enough to commit violence.”

I’m glad that we can agree that ALL politicians need to tone it down, not only Trump, and that includes Hillary “we can’t be civil until we’re in power” Clinton, Eric “we kick em” Holder, and Maxine “create a crowd and push them, and tell them that they’re not welcome anywhere” Waters.

I enjoy a piece of the current environment. In many respects, I felt the same extreme mental stress of the Obama administration (ODS) that Jay and others are experiencing with their Trump derangement syndrom (TDS). Nice to know that can be shared.

HOWEVER, I do not remember the right ever responding to Obama and the democrats like the democrats have with the GOP in power. There was much negative talk. but how much physical inuendo as we have today?

Proud Boys and the Alt-Right generally are absolutely racist and misogynist – in the same sense that BLM and many feminist groups are.

They are a collection of whiners seeking to blame all their problems on victimization.

These Alt-Right groups tend to reflect white male 20-30 year olds without a college education, who can not get a good job, and see women and minorities getting preference over them for the few jobs there are.

They are pathetic, but they are less dangerous and evil than the myriads of more numerous victimization cults of the left.

Trying to call them racists and misogynist in a sense beyond whining about their own victimization requires mltiple disconnects from realty.

It requiires beleiving they are far more powerful than they are.
There were more antifa in boston the week after charlottesviile than alt-right in the entre US

t requres this lunatc beleif that everything anyone you do not lke says is a crypto dog-whistle.
it requres beleving that when they say something – they really mean something quite different.

This means of labeling someone as racist because of what you claim s ther hidden message, is politically perfect, but otherwise stupid and dangerous.

f you get to judge others based on what YOU get to say they actually mean, you can ALWAYS pant your opponents as evl and your frends as good.

it is a permutaton of the typical leftst garbage of judgng people by what you thnk they mean, rather than what they actually say or even more meanngfully what they do.

I don’t believe Proud Boys espouse socialism, Dave. They consider themselves warriors against PC and 3rd wave feminism. They are not explicitly racist, and in fact, withdrew from the Charlottesville Unite the Right march last year when they learned that white supremacists and Nazis would be there. I think that we’ve reached a rather critical point where we all need to be very precise in calling names. If we’re going to call someone “racist” that person should have said or done something that was, in fact, racist. If we’re going to say that Brett Kavanaugh is a rapist, there should be evidence that he raped someone. If, like grump, we’re going to call someone immoral, there should be an agreed upon definition of right and wrong…not just an ideological or political disagreement. Gavin McGinness happens not to be a racist or a Nazi. He is a controversial nationalist, who has said some very provocative things. But, accusations of racism and actual racism are often two very different things these days.

What we are seeng in our politics today s the predictable (and predicted) failure of intersectionality and postmodernism’

You can not scale the cult of victimhood – there must always be an oppressing majority, once you actually become the majority – you are inherently by your own values the oppressor.

Further becoming the majority requires labeling ever larger portions of the electorate as hateful hating haters.

Just as in the USSR, PRC and even the french revolution, when the “oppressed” gan power – they become the oppressors. That s inevitable when you fixate on “fairness” or “equality” rather than liberty, t s also why the american revolution is unique

“Just as in the USSR, PRC and even the french revolution, when the “oppressed” gan power – they become the oppressors. That s inevitable when you fixate on “fairness” or “equality” rather than liberty, t s also why the american revolution is unique”

What we are going to hear is how inhuman we are to these individuals when we say you stay in the camp waiting for a hearing (which I think is asinine also under its current form) or return home. The liberals are going to blast the administration through the media while they refuse to work with the administration in immigration reform.

Dave, “The left wants to pretend they do not exst.”
For the left they dont exist. It is a very easy choice to say “come on in, no problem”. And the estimate there are about 2000. The left sees 2000 additional votes plus offspring votes in the future.

They go low and we kick them: Anderson was not the only GOP candidate attacked. First-time state representative candidate Shane Mekeland suffered a concussion after getting sucker punched while speaking with constituents at a restaurant in Benton County. Mekeland told the Free Beacon he has suffered memory loss—forgetting Rep. Anderson’s name at one point in the interview—and doctors tell him he will have a four-to-six week recovery time ahead of him. He said he was cold cocked while sitting at a high top table at a local eatery and hit his head on the floor.https://freebeacon.com/politics/two-gop-candidates-assaulted-minnesota/